


What If We Left?

by iamthececimonster



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Artist Mickey Milkovich, Bipolar Ian Gallagher, Canon-Typical Violence, Carl is also a good bro, EMT Ian Gallagher, Fix-It of Sorts, Homophobia, I'm Bad At Tagging, Iggy is a good bro, Internalized Homophobia, Not Canon Compliant, Tattoo Artist Mickey Milkovich, a little ooc, and summaries, good luck?, it's not shown, the major character death is Terry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 14:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17285507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthececimonster/pseuds/iamthececimonster
Summary: What if Mickey can't bear the thought of Mandy getting hurt by Terry again and they just...leave the South Side? What if they never told anyone they were leaving, or where they were going, they just left?What if Ian's best friend leaves the South Side one day out of the blue and he's got no idea where she went but he can't waste too much time thinking about it, he's trying to get himself out, too.This is a story about that. It's got a happy ending because I really just want my trash boys to have a happy ending.





	1. Mickey Milkovich Makes a Decision

**Author's Note:**

> This was created as a Christmas gift for my dear friend Jimmy. We don't need to talk about how late it is. It's a (mostly) happy story about what would happen if our trash boys got out of the South Side. We just want them to have a chance. Please and thanks. 
> 
> Beta'd by Leah, all mistakes are my own. 
> 
> In the first chapter, Mandy is sexually assaulted by Terry. It's not shown, but it happens and it's talked about, sorta vaguely.

On the first day of second grade, Mickey Milkovich wore stolen sneakers, a t-shirt with no sleeves, and a black eye. He held his head high, 7 year old pride bright and cutting in his eyes, and walked his little sister to her kindergarten class. 

“I'm fine, Mick-eyyy,” Mandy whined, pushing her dark, jet black hair out of her face.

A boy walked up to the door, limbs too long, hair a shocking red color that made Mickey gasp a little. 

“Fi, he'll be fiiine.” Mickey heard Lip Gallagher say. Stupid fucking Lip. 

“Right, but.” An older girl with chocolate colored hair started to speak. 

“Fiona, I'm fine. Please.” The ginger boy spoke and something in Mickey's chest fluttered. 

He turned to Mandy, and gave her the same advice Iggy had given him. “Don't get into any fights you can't win.” 

She pushed him away and he turned to walk to his classroom. Two weeks later, Mandy was sitting next to the scrawny redhead in hand-me-down jeans that were almost too short at lunch and Mickey watched them out of the corner of his eye. 

The next week, he brought home his math test home, the bright red A at the top of the page like a beacon. He got them all right, even the extra hard one at the bottom that was extra credit. He showed Terry, pride straightening his tiny spine, but the drunken asshole had torn the page in half and started screaming about pansy ass fucking pencil pushers. Mickey ended up with a bruised rib cage and refused to cry. Iggy had brought him the taped up paper into Mickey's room the next day when Terry was asleep and stole his little brother a Snickers bar from the corner store. 

 

In third grade, once a week, they had art classes, and Mickey's fist clutched around the bright colors, drawing and drawing and drawing. He drew Mandy, and Iggy, and Tony and Jamie when they got out of juvie. He drew beer bottles and stubbed out cigarettes and graffiti stained walls and the Chicago skyline. He drew that redheaded kid Mandy kept hanging out with, Lip Gallagher's little brother, his hair bright red against the cheap construction paper. 

 

In 4th grade, Iggy and Mandy stole him a sketch pad and some nice pencils for Christmas. Iggy went to Juvie for the first time two weeks later and Mickey went back to school with a broken wrist and a clenched jaw. 

 

Mickey was in 6th grade the first time he went to juvie - possession of a controlled substance, on a drug run for Terry. Small and a little terrified but refusing to show it, he punched some asshole in the cafeteria on the first night because Terry told him, Milkoviches show dominance. 

 

In 7th grade, Terry found Mickey’s sketches in a spiral bound notebook, found Mickey’s rendition of the tattoo on Jamie’s chest, tribal designs, and way too many drawings of a scrawny, freckled kid with messy red hair. Terry beat the shit out of Mickey, screaming that no son of his was going to be some fucking faggot artist, and burnt the notebook. Mickey laid on the worn wooden floor, pistol whipped, passed out, and still bleeding, until Mandy and Iggy came home. He silently cried himself to sleep that night, after Mandy cleaned his cuts and put a bag of frozen vegetables on his head. He’s pretty sure he chipped a tooth.

The next morning, on the way to school, the redhead - Ian, Mandy kept reminding him - asked him what happened to him. 

“Mind your own fucking business, Carrot Top. No one fucking asked you.” Mickey hissed around his busted lip.

“Jesus, Mick. He just asked a question. You’re such a dick.” Mandy retorted, gentler than usual, before walking into the elementary school. 

When Angie Zago asked Mickey if he wanted to make out under the bleachers in the middle school gym at lunch, he said yes. He hated it, but he closed his eyes and thought of red hair and freckles and told everyone he loved it.

 

He went back to juvie in 8th grade and came out with new tattoos on his fists, a gleaming endorsement of his unquestioning willingness to FUCK U UP - and the beginning of a starry-eyed love for the feeling of a buzzing needle on his skin and the art some of the guys had pressed into their skin, permanent and angry. 

 

A week into the summer after ninth grade, he goes again, just a month, for joyriding. Gets another tattoo on his chest - лояльність, loyalty, in blocky letters just above his heart - tattoos a couple guys with a pen and a needle and fucking loves it. He’s 15 years old and wonders for the first time if maybe he has a chance at a life outside the one Terry Milkovich has planned for him. But then he gets home mid-July and Terry shoves a gun into his hand and tells him and Iggy to go get the fucking money some fucking coke head owes them and his stomach hits the floor. He doesn’t fucking want to, and he tells Terry that. The fucker just breaks an almost-empty beer bottle on the table next to him, beer spraying everywhere, and comes at Mickey with it. He ends up with a massive gash in his ribcage. So, he does this, he knows this. Fighting and screaming threats and being Terry Milkovich’s son. They run into Mandy and Ian on the way home, bloodied and the money burning a hole in Mickey’s pants pocket, the beer bottle gash on his side throbbing under the makeshift bandage he used. 

“Ey, it’s Red.” Iggy shoves the skinny kid, and he stumbles a little. 

“Uh, hey.” the kid's cheeks turn red under his freckles.

Mickey says nothing. 

“I'll see you later, Ian.” Mandy says, quietly, when they've reached the Milkovich front stoop. Terry's inside and they can hear his drunken rambling from out here. 

“Uh, sure.” He says, hands deep in the pockets of his frayed cargo shorts. “Bye Mandy.” He looks up at Mickey for a second - gazes even, despite the fact that Ian's two years younger. Mickey puffs out his chest, not wanting to be outdone by some kid. Ian just shuts his mouth again and looks back at the cracked sidewalk, and then walks away. 

Terry is halfway to completely trashed, immediately takes the money Iggy and Mickey just picked up for him, and storms out the door, weaving and bobbing down the sidewalk towards the Alibi. Mickey lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when Terry's drunken voice trails off in the distance. He lets Mandy clean his bloody lip, his bleeding side, he and Iggy sitting side by side in silence as their little sister washes them off with a rag, and he wonders if this is all there is. Iggy runs down the street to the corner store and manages to steal a couple cans of off brand Chef Boyarde spaghetti-o's while the tired looking cashier is distracted, and they eat, watching tv on the crooked sofa, and wonder what time Terry will wander back home. 

It's pitch black and he's got less than no idea what fucking time it is when a loud thumping wakes Mickey up. He grabs the pistol from the drawer next to his bed and the tire iron from next to his door. He slips the gun in the waistband of his shorts and clutches the tire iron tight in his fist, then steps into the hallway. The thumping is coming from Mandy's room and he can hear crying faintly underneath it. Iggy's on the other side of the hallway, gun clutched in his hand, eyes wide. Mandy's door is cracked and then, as suddenly as it had woken Mickey up, the thumping stopped. One more loud thud and then just the faint sound of crying. Mickey shoved the door open just a little more, and in the flickering light from the street lamp, the scene in front of him makes vomit rush up his throat. He hears retching behind him, and then feet, the door, and vomiting. 

Mandy is curled in the fetal position on the far corner of her bed, nightshirt torn at the shoulder, plaid pajamas (that once belonged to Mickey) pulled hastily up around her waist. Her shoulders were shaking, her arms clutched tight around her body. Terry was flopped, face down, on the ground, one arm still stretched up on the bed. Mickey felt the blood rush from his face, felt his stomach turn. No. No, no. Not possible. Not fucking possible. 

“Mandy…” He whispers. She doesn't respond. 

Careful not to wake the sleeping monster draped across his little sister's floor, Mickey makes his way to the bed. He drops the tire iron on the mattress and then carefully, gently, he wraps his arms around his sister and lifts her up. Iggy's back and looking murderous in the doorway. Mickey just shakes his head minutely, hoists his shaking sister higher in his arms, and takes her to his room. He puts her on the bed and she still hasn't moved. For a moment, Mickey stands, chewing on the skin by his thumbnail. Mandy is curled into the tightest possible ball on his bed and Iggy, 17 and looking somehow both 7 and 70, is staring at him from the half open door. 

He throws his hands in the air and lets out a quiet groan. Then he turns to his brother. “We'll take her to the fucking clinic tomorrow or something. We'll figure it out.” 

“We should fuckin’ kill him, Mick.” The blonde haired teenager hisses. 

“Yeah, we should, but our little sister is crying in my bed with a torn t-shirt and right now I'm a little more worried about her than chopping his body into little fucking pieces.” Mickey snarls. 

Iggy nods, steps into the younger boy’s bedroom, and lays himself down on the raggedy sofa there. 

“The fuck are you doing?” Mickey asks in a whisper as his older brother tucks his pistol under the pillow. 

“You think I'm leaving her alone for a fucking second you got another fucking think coming, Mick. Now get her a different fucking shirt.” Iggy's voice is hard, tired. 

And yeah, okay. Mickey gets that. He leaves the gun out on his bedside table, and then digs through his drawers for a new shirt. Gently, softly, whispering soothingly to Mandy, he helps her sit up and change into a shirt that isn't ripped and a pair of his old gym shorts. He throws the offending clothes near the doorway and pulls a blanket over his sister. She clings to his wrist and tugs him down so the first time since they were small and their mom died of an overdose on the front lawn, Mickey wraps himself around his little sister, pulls the blanket up tight, and holds her, rubbing her arm gently, slowly. Eventually, she falls asleep, and only then, he does, dozing off fitfully and waking up to every sound. 

The next morning, he hears Terry leave as if nothing fucking happened and the blood in his veins boils. 

“Mandy, you wanna go to the clinic?” He asks, holding out the glass of water Iggy brings and cleaning her bruised and tear streaked face with a cool rag. 

She shakes her head, clutching her arms around herself. 

“Alright.” Fuck. Fucking fuck. They can't. “Sit tight, Iggy and I will be right in the kitchen.” 

She nods and lays back down, curling up under Mickey's sweat stained blankets. 

Mickey grabs his older brother by the forearm and yanks him to the kitchen.

“We gonna go kill the fucker?” Iggy asks through a clenched jaw. 

Mickey rubs his temples. “Ig, if we fucking kill him and get caught, what happens to Mandy?” 

Iggy opened his mouth and shut it. “Fuck. Whadda we do?” 

“I'm fucking 15 years old how the fuck should I fucking know?” Mickey felt his shoulders tense. He sat down, hard, in one of the kitchen chairs. “Fuck, Iggy, we gotta go.” 

“Go where?” 

“I don't fucking know, man, but we gotta get the fuck outta here.” It was, to date, the most un-Milkovich thing Mickey had ever heard himself say. Milkoviches don't run away from anything, ever.

“What!?” 

“What you deaf now or something?” Mickey growled. 

“That's… that's crazy, Mick.” Iggy sat down, too. 

“What's crazy is our fucking dad raping our 12 year old sister.” He felt bile rising in his throat again. “So I'm getting her the fuck out of here. Either you come with us and make this whole thing a lot fucking easier, or you stay. But I'm going.” 

“Where?” 

“Haven't thought that far ahead, man.” 

“Yeah alright. I know a guy who can get me a real good ID that says I'm 18 and another guy who can forge custody papers. It might take a couple days though” 

“Why do you fucking…” Mickey started. “You know what? Never mind.” Iggy just stared at him. “Well! Fucking go then!” 

Iggy jumped up, grabbed his wallet, and headed out the door. Mickey stands there for a second and tries to figure out what to do, what the plan is. He remembers Mandy, in third grade learning about ecosystems, and telling him she wants to see the beach. So he thinks they'll start there. In the meantime, he brings his sister crackers and another glass of water and she stays silent. It's fucking weird, she's always fucking talking, but she hasn't said a word. He crawls in bed with her again and braids her hair the way she made him learn before picture day in elementary school and hums nothing under his breath. Iggy comes home at the end of the day with tired eyes, a baggy of weed, and the promise that the papers'll be ready by the next afternoon. 

“Get her outta here before he comes back, Mick.” Iggy urges, quietly. 

“And take her fucking where, exactly?” Mickey growls.

Iggy shrugs. There's a knock at the door and they both flinch. Mickey opens the door a crack and there's a flash of red. Oh fucking shit. He opens the door the rest of the way.

“The fuck you want, Carrot Top?” 

“Oh. Uh. Uhm.” The kid stutters, staring at Mickey with big green eyes. 

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ Gallagher, I'm going grey here what the fuck do you need?” 

The kid stumbles a bit. “I was just looking for Mandy. She...was supposed to come hang out?”

Mickey scrubs his face with the hand not white knuckling the door. Then an idea crosses his mind. “Hey kid, you got a fucking sofa or something?” 

“The fuck?” The kid looks like he's got whiplash. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, do you have a fucking…”

The kid cuts him off. “Yeah, why?” 

Why. Why indeed. “Listen, Mandy got sick, Dad's out, Iggy and I gotta take care of some shit tonight. She shouldn't be here alone. Can she crash on your fucking couch or nah?” 

The redhead's face pales under his freckles. “Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah. What happened?” 

“Don't ask stupid fucking questions.” Mickey slides his shoes on and then goes to his bedroom where Mandy is still curled in a ball. 

He crouches down beside her and whispers. “Hey, Mandy, Ian's here. You're gonna stay at the Gallagher's tonight, I'll pick you up in the morning. We're… We're gonna get you outta here.” He brushes her bangs out of her face and she nods, just once. “Can you stand?” She shakes her head. 

So Mickey picks his sister up, she's light as a fucking feather, and carries her to the door. He points to her flip flops and instructs the redhead having the weirdest fucking staring contest with Iggy to pick them up and lead the way. It’s the middle of summer and hot as fucking balls and he’s got sweat dripping down the back of his neck, but he ignores it because Mandy is still shivering in his arms and he feels fury coiling in his gut. The kid leads him to a faded yellow house, in the front door, up the stairs, past two younger kids in the living room. Lip is on some kind of fucking loft bed, laying back and staring at the ceiling, joint in his mouth. 

He sits up when the odd trio walks in. “What the fuck, Ian?” 

“Shut the fuck up, Lip. She's sick, she's staying the night here, don't ask questions.” Ian squares his shoulders, chin out, and points Mickey to the bed. 

Mickey takes a moment to appreciate the ferocity in the redhead's tone and the glare he's giving his older brother. 

Lip shrugs, eyes glazed. “Yeah what the fuck ever. I don't give a shit. Think there's soup in the fridge. Don't steal anything, Mickey.” 

Mickey clenches his jaw and ignores the curly haired bastard, tucking his sister in gently. He leans over her. “I'll be back in the morning, I promise.” Then he turns to the other two people in the room. “I'll be back in the morning. If anyone other than me, or Iggy, asks, you never saw me, or her. She's not here.” 

“Why…?” The kid asks.

“What did I say about stupid fucking questions, Gallagher?”

He shrugs. “Yeah alright. Everything okay?” 

Mickey just raises his eyebrow and walks away. He returns home, finds Terry passed out on the sofa drunk and probably coked the fuck out. Iggy’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen with one eyebrow raised and his arms crossed over his chest. Silently, Mickey goes to the locked cabinet in the living room, picks the lock, and takes out some of the product Terry usually has them selling. He locks the cabinet back up, throws his backpack over one shoulder, slides his gun in his waistband, and turns to his brother. 

“If he asks, I’m...I don’t know, fucking Angie Zago or some shit. I’ll be back before morning. Mandy’s at the Gallaghers, they’re not stupid enough to ask questions.” He whispers. 

Iggy just nods. “If you get arrested, I’m gonna break your teeth. And leave without you.”

Mickey nods, once, and turns on his heel. He just needs to sell enough to have enough money to get started. He knows Iggy’s got some cash stocked up, and he has maybe a couple hundred dollars, but they’d need more. So, he trudges to the North Side, knowing full well those fuckers had more money than good sense, and posts up. He makes a couple thousand dollars, stuffed under a spare t-shirt in his bag, by the time the sun is rising. His eyes are tired and his body hurts, so instead of walking all the way back to his house, he hops the turnstile at the nearest L station, ignoring the baffled, sleepy stares of early morning commuters, and sits on the train with his eyes half closed the rest of the way back to the South Side. 

When Mickey gets back home, Terry’s still passed out, and Iggy is sitting at the kitchen table drinking a mug of tar-black coffee. Mickey pushes the backpack with the money behind a pile of dirty laundry in his closet and hears Terry starting to wake up. He flops on his bed, pretending to be asleep, when the old man bolted through the door to use the bathroom. 

“Wake the fuck up, dumbass.” Terry snarls when he walks back out, scratching his rotund belly. 

Mickey shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes, staring blearily at his father. 

“Where’s your fucking sister?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Mickey retorts. 

“Don’t fucking talk back to me, boy.” He looks around for a moment. “Your uncle and I have some business to take care of, we’ll be gone for a couple days. Make yourself fucking useful, make me some fucking money while I’m gone.”

Mickey nods, only half listening, and the old man is gone. He waits, listening to shuffles, grunting and a series of well-worded insults to Iggy, and then the door wrenching open and slamming shut. Waiting, breathing slowly, Mickey counts to 60 in his head and then shoves himself off his bed. He finds a mostly clean shirt and starts yanking it over his head as he walks to the kitchen where Iggy is still sitting, still drinking coffee. 

“How much?” the older boy asks, not looking up.

“A couple thousand. When’ll the papers be ready?”

“Guy told me around lunch time. Tony’s car is still here.” Iggy shoves one thumb in the direction of their older brother’s shitbox of a car parked next to the house.

“He’s gonna be pissed when he gets out of jail.”

“We got a couple months. He can steal another one.” 

“He didn’t steal that one.”

“No, but we’re about to.”

“Should we tell him?”

“Maybe when we get wherever it is the fuck we’re going.” Iggy stands up, and pours the dredges of coffee down the drain.

“Right.” Mickey nods. His body is aching with lack of sleep. “I’m going to go get Mandy. Then I’ll back. I wanna be outta this fucking shithole before dark. Pack a fucking bag and get those fucking papers.” 

Iggy moves to do that, and Mickey doesn’t have time to think about the fact that he’s standing in their father’s kitchen ordering his older brother around like it was his fucking job and the asshole just fucking listens. He just shakes his head, laces his boots, and heads in the direction of the Gallagher house. 

It’s fucking chaos when he gets there. Some kid - Carl, he thinks he heard Mandy say once - wrenches the door open when he knocks, and then turns away, back in the direction of the house, towards a kitchen. 

“Ian, why the fuck is Mandy’s brother here?” The kid shouts at the top of his lungs. He’s like, 8 fucking years old and holding a burnt and headless barbie in his hand. 

The redhead jerks up, syrup dripping from the pancakes on his fork when he drops it on the table. “Oh, hey Mickey. Mandy’s still asleep. Want some pancakes? Fiona made coffee.”

Mickey’s eyebrow approaches his hairline and there’s a mug of coffee being shoved into his hands. He takes a sip, and Lip is staring at him suspiciously. 

“Kid’s pretty fucking sick, hasn’t said a word. Looks like she saw a ghost. Should take her to a doctor.” The oldest Gallagher boy is staring at him with his creepy, big ass eyes. 

“You fuckin’ done, dumbass?” Mickey quickly drains the coffee - it’s better than that tar shit Iggy makes. “She still upstairs?” He asks, and then, without waiting for an answer, starts up the stairs. A girl with long, curly red hair pushes past him and he almost trips. Fucking Gallaghers.

He gets up to the room he left his sister in the night before, caffeine hitting his veins and waking him up a little bit. Ian’s right the fuck behind him and holy christ has this kid ever fucking heard of personal space? He rolls his eyes.

Mandy is staring at the ceiling when he walks into the room, Ian hot on his heels. 

“Hey, Mandy. How you fuckin’ feeling?” Mickey asks, gruff but not uncaring. 

She just rolls her head over and stares at him. Well, at least she’s looking at him. That’s a fucking improvement. 

“You gonna walk or do I gotta carry your heavy ass again?”

She rolls her eyes and then pushes herself up onto her feet, wobbling just a little. She’s still wearing Mickey’s old gym shorts and too-big shirt and she looks so small. Ian hands her the flip flops he’d carried yesterday. She gives the kid the hint of a smile and reaches up to weakly ruffle his red curls. He smiles big and bright and it kinda hurts Mickey to look at it. They walk down the stairs together. Before they walk out the door, Mickey turns to the Gallagher kid. 

“You never saw us, we were never here. For your own fucking sake, kid, remember that.”

Ian just raises one eyebrow and nods.

Then they’re gone. 

Mickey packs a duffle bag with as many clothes as it’ll hold, and another bag with food. Mandy is sitting on the sofa, staring at the blank television. 

“You should shower, Mands.” He says, softly. She blinks and looks down at herself. Then she looks at the closed door of her bedroom and shakes her head. 

Mickey thinks he understands, so he goes into it, grimacing at the rumpled bed sheets, and grabs some clean clothes. Then he directs Mandy to the bathroom attached to his room, hands her the clothes, and pushes her towards the shower. She smiles kind of weakly. Quickly, listening to the water groaning through the pipes, he fills another duffle bag with as many of Mandy’s clothes as he can, looking around to see if there’s anything important to take. Then he laughs to himself. This is not the kind of house where people keep treasured mementos. He pulls the two books off the table by Mandy’s bed, grabs her school bag, and her sneakers, and slams the door shut behind him. He kinda wants to set fire to the bed, but he can’t find his lighter and doesn’t want to deal with a burning mattress this early in the morning. Mandy’s sitting on the sofa again, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. She looks so small, and Mickey realizes she kinda is. She carries herself loud and brash, bigger and badder than she is, but then, they all do. But she’s 12. She’s fucking 12 years old, she sings along with Top 40 radio songs and gets excited when she sees the first snow of the season, every year. Mickey’s stomach turns. He goes out to the car and shoves the bags in the car. Iggy’s bag is already in there. Then he goes back to the house, jumps in the shower hoping Mandy didn’t use all the meager hot water, that a pipe wouldn’t burst. A thought occurs to him, and he quickly towels off, pulling his jeans on and struggling with his shirt against his still-damp skin. 

Mickey crouches next to his sister, and starts to speak, voice cracking a little. “Mandy, is there...is there any chance you could be…” the words trail off, he can’t bring himself to ask. 

She looks at him with the emptiest eyes he’s ever seen and shakes her head, lower lip trapped between her teeth. He seethes, but is quietly grateful that’s one problem he won’t have to deal with.

After lunch - Mickey forces Mandy to eat at least one pizza bagel - Iggy returns, an off-white folder in one hand and a bag of likely stolen snacks, and they pile in the car, Mandy curled up on the back bench seat. Mickey offers to drive, but Iggy looks at him with a blank stare and remarks that he’s not going to go to all this trouble to get pulled over for some kid driving underage. They’ve got an unregistered pistol in the glove compartment and one under Mickey’s seat and at least one more in the trunk, so Mickey figures that’s probably for the best, and tells Iggy to drive south. 

 

The first time they stop at a gas station, somewhere in Indiana, Mickey steals an Atlas, tells Iggy to stay on I65 until they hit Nashville, eats too many BBQ Pringles, and falls asleep to the gentle rocking of the car underneath him. When he wakes up, the sky is that cotton candy color just before dusk, Mandy’s staring out the back window, and Iggy’s eyes are locked on the road in front of them, hands gripping the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping him attached to the world. 

“Where are we?” Mickey asks, looking around. Nothing looks familiar.

“Somewhere in Kentucky.” Iggy answers, short. “Need gas soon, and I’m fucking hungry for something that isn’t chips.”

There’s a truck stop in the distance, so they pull off the highway, Iggy gets gas, and Mickey drags Mandy into the McDonald’s inside. She goes to the bathroom and he orders enough food to feed a fucking army. Then they’re on the road again and Mickey’s drawing on the back of one of the paper bags by the light of passing cars as the sky turns darker. It’s not anything, but it keeps his mind busy. 

They stop in the parking lot of a dark WalMart outside Nashville. Mickey covers Mandy with a blanket he pulled off his bed and curls up in the passenger seat under his own hoodie. Iggy leans his seat back, careful not to hit his sister, and closes his eyes. 

The next morning, they stop at some shitty donut place and Iggy drinks a massive cup of coffee and they fill up their gas tank. Mickey directs Iggy to get on I75 South and tells him to keep driving until they hit the ocean. Iggy raises one eyebrow and kinda laughs, Mandy smiles a little, and Mickey thinks he made the right choice. 

The scenery passes around them, flashing by too fast. Georgia is hot and fucking humid and the AC in this shitty car doesn’t really work so they roll down the windows and Mandy’s hair is in a messy ponytail and she still hasn’t spoken but there’s a small smile on her face, so he’ll take it. They cross over into Florida and Mandy’s staring out the open window, eyes slightly less empty looking, Iggy’s hands are still clutching the steering wheel, but his face is less strained looking, and Mickey’s drawing palm trees on the back of a Burger King bag. 

The engine starts to splutter right before Tampa and Iggy sighs. This car was not meant to drive this far, not like this. It was a shit car when Tony got it and it’s a shittier car now. They make it to Tampa on sheer determination and something that tastes like fear, but they find a mechanic shop on the outskirts of what might be the shitty part of town with a giant HELP WANTED sign in the window and some redneck lookin’ fucker with the sleeves torn off his shirt and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, starting to lock up for the night. Iggy asks if the guy’ll let him fix the car himself, just pay for the space, it’s not worth paying for labor on this piece of shit car. 

“Only thing that piece of shit’s good for is scrap, boy.” The man’s ring of keys dangle from his hand, glinting in the fading light, and he looks at Iggy curiously.

“Yeah, well. It’s all we got.” Iggy looks up to the sky. It’s starting to get dark again, and he’s got a silent sister and a scowling brother and too many illegal guns in this car, and they don’t even have anywhere else to sleep. 

The guy raises an eyebrow, and looks from the teenager with his clenched jaw, and the two kids sitting in the car staring at him. 

“Tell you what. I’ll do you one better. You say you can fix cars?”

Iggy bites back the retort that he’s probably better at stripping and hot wiring them - he’s perfected the art of saying nothing, it’s what he’s good at - and nods at the old man. 

“Well, I need a new mechanic. My old guy up and quit. You look like you may need some help.”

Iggy raises his eyebrow and hears Mickey’s voice in the back of his head, suspicious and uncertain. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. I’m guessing y’all don’t have anywhere to sleep but that shitbox.” The old man raises his bushy eyebrows. He’s got a faint drawl and pale blue eyes. “I know what running away looks like, boy.” He points to the car. “And you folks are a long way away from home.”

Iggy mulls this over in his head, a headache forming behind his eyes. 

The man speaks slowly. “I know a guy who’ll pay you for the scrap and any useable parts. May even have a different car for you.” 

Iggy’s eyebrows raise. 

“Pay’s decent, all above the table, and I got a little room off the office y’all can stay in until you find a place.”

Iggy’s eyebrows raise even higher. He looks back at the car. Mickey’s getting impatient, he can tell. 

“Think it over, kid. I’ll be back in the morning. Talk to your…” he gestures to the car, trailing off. “If you’re gone when I get back, I never saw you.” And with that, the man hops into a beat up Chevy truck and is gone. 

Mickey is immediately suspicious, Mandy says nothing, and Iggy points out they don’t have many other options. So they fall into a cramped and restless sleep in the broken down car after eating cold knock-off spaghetti-o’s and a box of off-brand chocolate chip cookies. 

 

The next morning, the old man’s back, Iggy signs some papers, Mickey’s scowling, and Mandy still hasn’t spoken. They move their bags into the cramped room behind the shop and the guy says he knows a couple places that might have apartments for rent for pretty cheap. Mickey takes Mandy to the beach and that night, Iggy comes back with a different, slightly less shitty old car, and tells Mickey in a whisper that Tony’s been sworn to secrecy, doesn’t know where they are, and won’t come looking. Mickey watches Mandy’s chest rise and fall gently as she sleeps on the thin mattress they’re sharing, uncomfortably, and hopes he made the right call. 

 

A week later, Mickey and Mandy are enrolled in school - Mickey has to repeat ninth grade and he chewed his lip and tried not to cuss the sun-tanned administrative assistant out, and agrees to tape up his fingers, because he passed an art classroom on the way here and Mandy looks so hopeful sitting next to him, fingers curled around the hem of her tank top, and he doesn’t want to mess this up. A week after that, Iggy tells them he found a cheap two-bedroom place a couple blocks from their schools and a 5 minute drive in the other direction to the garage where he now works. School starts and Mickey’s prepared to hate it, but Mandy’s finally speaking again, and it’s warm and the sun is shining, and school doesn’t completely suck when your dad isn’t breathing down your neck the whole fucking time to tell you you’re never gonna be anything. He’s got an A in math (he kind of even enjoys it and if you say anything at all he’ll punch you and deny everything). 

The art teacher loves him - even finds him an after school job at this weird indie art store next door to a tattoo shop. Sometimes, on the weekends, Mickey goes in there on his lunch break or after his shift and watches the artists working, flipping through portfolios. By the time the end of the school year rolls around, the owner of the shop is used to this scowling, dark haired kid with his shitty juvie tattoos staring at the artists while they work, and comes in one day during the summer with his old gun and some pig skins he scored off the butcher downtown. He hands them to the kid and the kid’s eyes light up like a fucking firecracker. He pretends, for a while, not to notice the shitty knuckle tattoo that stay wrapped up half the time.

“How old are you?” He asks one day, tapping the table in front of the focused looking kid, who’s sitting out behind the shop with a folded bandana catching sweat and keeping his hair from flopping in front of his eyes while he etches this angry looking bird into a strip of pig skin. There’s a sketchbook open on the table and in one corner a curly haired boy with bright looking eyes. 

The dark haired boy looks up, setting the old needle down and glaring. “Why?”

“Fucking answer the question, dumbass.”

Eyebrows furrow, suspicious. “16. Who’s asking?”

“You got a guardian of some kind?”

Mickey raises his eyebrow. “What’s with the Spanish Inquisition, man?”

The shop owner rolls his eyes, and then taps Mickey’s clenched knuckles with one finger. “That’s a pretty dumb ass tattoo for a sixteen year old kid.”

Mickey just glowers. He knows this, doesn’t need some shitty hipster telling him that. 

“Gotta get pretty irritating covering that shit up all the time.”

He hums at that. He went through athletic tape like you would not believe and the questions were worse. 

“You get a guardian to sign off on it, I’ll do a cover up.” The owner says, stomping out his cigarette and walking back inside. 

Mickey’s eyes are wide, and he packs up his ink and the hand-me-down gun, and tosses the used up pig skin in the trash. He sits on the cracked leather sofa in the waiting area of the shop, thankful for the air conditioning in here, and starts to sketch ideas. His mind is swirling with cover-ups as he trudges next door and spends 4 hours at his shift at the art store. The manager he’s working with is a bored looking lesbian who’s girlfriend brings them both pizza at dinner time and something in Mickey’s gut clenches - anger, jealousy, something white hot and vicious - when the manager kisses her girlfriend on the cheek before the other girl leaves. 

Iggy’s making decent money at the garage, Mandy’s talking again and going out with friends and fucking smiling, and Mickey looks proudly down at the newly inked tattoos on the backs of his hands - spiraling trees with roots down the tops of his fingers, the beginnings of a sleeve for both arms, and the first professional ink he’s ever gotten - and thinks that yeah, getting out of Chicago was the right choice. He’s still chain smoking, and Iggy still looks over his shoulder a lot, and Mandy dates this really shitty college guy when she’s in 10th grade, until Mickey and Iggy threaten to kill the guy because “Dude she’s a fucking kid what the hell is wrong with you?” and that’s over almost before it even starts. Their apartment is shitty, and sometimes there’s too much month at the end of their money, but Mandy has a job at a coffee shop down the street from Mickey’s job, and she’s smiling more, and they’re safe here and Mickey feels like he can breathe.

 

Mandy badgers Mickey into applying to art school at the University of South Florida when he’s a senior, so he does just to shut her up. She bets him he won’t be able to do it, really, because that’s how you get a Milkovich to do whatever you want - challenge them, tell them they’re too much of a pussy, and they’ll do it - and when he loses the bet, he’s not even that mad. He lets Mandy drag him to the tattoo shop, lets her pick out a pair of black stud earrings, lets her make him get his ears pierced. Lets her because he just got his acceptance letter, he’s going to college, lets her because she’s smiling at him like the sun is coming out of her face, lets her because, let’s be honest, he looks hot with his ears pierced like this. Then he gets a scholarship, and another one because they’re so fucking poor. It’s close enough that he can stay at the apartment, and the owner of the tattoo shop offered him an apprenticeship and how the fuck can he turn that down? The manager of the art store smiles at him, pulls him into a hug he does not reciprocate, and tells him to come visit or she’ll hunt him down. He points out that he’s literally going to be right next store and she laughs. 

So he graduates high school - a year late, but holy fuck, he’s pretty sure he’s the first Milkovich to ever graduate high school - with two half completed half sleeves, the trees flowering, one side becoming a constellation of stars and the other side a bright sun, an almost full-ride to art school, an apprenticeship at a this hipster ass tattoo shop, and it’s kind of fucking incredible. He starts college in the fall and that in and of itself feels like a goddamn miracle. He comes home with his fingers are covered in ink and charcoal smeared across his face and he’s decided he wants to take business classes, because why not and maybe because he might want to open his own shop one day, but right now that feels like a pipe dream so he doesn’t say anything. Sometimes he still wakes up in a cold sweat, heart racing, phantom pains in his wrist or his ribcage, expecting to see a drunk Terry leering over him with a lead pipe or a gun. Every once and awhile, Mandy still curls into his bed, pulls the blankets over her head, and cries into his t-shirt. Sometimes, when he walks to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he can see Iggy sitting upright, eyes wide, staring blankly at the muted television, drinking beer on his sofa bed - he says nothing, just makes the coffee extra strong in the morning and pretends he doesn’t see the dark circles under his older brother’s eyes. 

 

Mickey’s more or less decided he’s just never gonna date. Too complicated, too confusing, too many variables. Iggy gives him shit sometimes, ribbing him about what girls he’s fucking, but Mickey just punches Iggy in the arm and the fucker shuts up. Mandy sometimes gives him a half curious look, but says nothing. He’s had sex once since they left Chicago, some dark haired girl in his government class, and he hated it so much he’s avoided it since then. He wakes up sometimes, images of muscular chest and narrow waists and long fingers gripping his hips behind his eyelids and cock half hard and tries not to hate himself when he jerks off and cums, fingers half teasing at his ass. He let some blonde haired twink with a tongue ring give him a blowjob outside a shitty bar and then went and got his tongue pierced because it had felt so fucking good and doesn’t regret most of the situation. Basically, he’s decided not to think about it.

They all go to the beach one weekend - they somehow managed to not be working all at the same time and it’s the last time it’ll be warm enough for a while, so Mickey tries not to grumble too much. He’s sitting in the sun, sketching, while Mandy is talking to some twit with a surfboard and Iggy is hitting on some blonde haired girl down the beach, and a fucking frisbee lands at his feet, kicking sand up into his face and all over his sketchbook. He looks up, scowling, and some fucking Steven Segal looking mother fucker is staring down at him, blocking the sun. 

“What the FUCK, man.” He snarls, trying to ignore the racing of his heart. 

The guy kneels down, skin slick with sweat and muscles rippling. “Sorry about that,” he offers, grabbing the frisbee with a smirk. “Wanna join?” He gestures to his friends. 

Mickey raises his eyebrow. “Not fucking likely.” 

“Your loss.” The Segal look-alike winks, he fucking  _ winks _ , and then jogs off. 

Mickey jerks off in the shower when they get home and is fucking cranky for the rest of the day. 

Two months into his semester, Mickey’s taking notes in his stupid fucking art history class and thinking about a side piece he’s working on that afternoon at the shop, when he overhears a couple of his classmates. If he’s not mistaken, they’re talking about some fucking gay club - it’s called the fucking Honey Pot, which is the stupidest thing Mickey’s ever heard and if anyone had the audacity to call a club that in the South Side they’d get their ass kicked - that lets you in under 21, you just can’t drink, and they’re making plans to go. He writes it down on the corner of his notebook and doesn’t think about it for a couple weeks. 

The holidays pass and it’s still weird that it’s like 60 degrees in February, but Mickey likes not having to be bundled up to his fucking ears and shivering under thin blankets. Valentine’s Day is here, and Mandy goes on a date with her on-again, off-again boyfriend that Mickey’s sure is going to end in them fucking in the room next to his, and he for sure does not want to be there for that. Iggy’s out with this girl he’s been seeing and it’s really fucking weird watching his brother get ready for a date, so Mickey locks himself in his room and tries to do his homework for this fucking philosophy class he’s taking. A few hours later and the paper is half done, and the front door creaks open. He can hear Mandy giggling. It’s just after 10:00, and there’s a low voice in the hallway, too. Mandy’s Valentine’s date must’ve gotten to the fucking part of the evening, and Mickey just can’t deal with that shit right now, so he shoves out the door in the nicest shirt he owns (it buttons up and it still has the sleeves, so he figures it’s decent enough), rolls up his sleeves, and heads in the direction of this shitty bar he heard the guys in his class talking about, checking the directions on the smartphone he finally got. 

Music is shaking the walls and the lights are flashing, and the place is already fucking packed when he arrives. Immediately, his skin is crawling, and the bouncer wraps a paper wristband around his wrist. 

“Don’t take it off, kid. Can’t fucking stamp you with all that ink.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot.” Mickey rolls his eyes. 

He makes his way to the bar out of habit, orders a Coke, and stares at the throngs of people around him. On some fucking platform in the middle of the room, a trio of nearly-naked twinks are gyrating, hips thrusting and swaying in time to the music. They’re wearing glittery pink booty shorts and their bodies are covered in body glitter and Mickey’s kind of mesmerized. One of them has red hair and it clashes terribly with the pink of his shorts, and Mickey finds himself wishing the guy was taller, broader. 

A couple hours later, he’s thinking of going home and just putting headphones in to block out the sounds of his little sister’s evening when a hand lands on his shoulder. He jerks back, ready to deck someone, and a dark haired man kind of laughs. 

He leans his head close to Mickey’s ear to be heard over the music. “Awfully jumpy, aren’t you?”

Mickey scowls. 

“You here alone?” The guy asks. He’s wearing a tank top and has a really shitty anchor tattoo on his shoulder and what looks like dog tags dipping under his shirt. But he’s kind of hot and Mickey’s frustrated and bored, so he nods. 

“You want some company?” The guy’s breath is hot on Mickey’s ear and he feels his breath catch. 

“You got a place we can do something more interesting?” Mickey asks, and the guy’s face lights up. 

They pay their tabs and Mickey follows the guy down a couple blocks to a decently nice apartment building. He doesn’t bother to ask the guy’s name, and the guy doesn’t ask his. The three bedroom apartment shows signs of other people living there, but it’s empty and kinda echo-y and the guy leads Mickey to one of the rooms. 

“You bottom?” the guy asks, hands gripping Mickey’s hips with a bruising force. 

Mickey thinks for a second, and then nods, cuz, yeah. Yeah, he wants this guy to fuck him into the mattress and he’s just gonna have to be okay with that.

And then the guy is ripping Mickey’s shirt off, buttons almost popping off, and Mickey rips the guy’s shirt off his ridiculously toned body and the guy is mouthing a hot line down Mickey’s chest to his belt buckle. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mickey’s glad the guy isn’t trying to kiss him. It’s hot, and heavy, and the weight is everything Mickey needed, wanted, craved. The stretch is sweetly painful and sinfully beautiful, and he’s passively thankful the guy has the decency to take his time at least a little bit. His hips are for sure gonna have fingerprint bruises and he’s gonna be sore as fuck but he cums harder than he ever has before, out of breath and sweating, so he figures it’s kinda worth it. They collapse in a heap on the bed and Mickey tries to catch his breath. 

“You can stay, if you want.” the guy offers, but Mickey can tell he’s hoping Mickey won’t. And Mickey doesn’t want.

So he cleans himself up with the offered washcloth, quickly gets dressed, and then waves a quick goodbye. It’s a long walk back to their shitty apartment, but it’s a nice enough night and Mickey kinda feels like he’s a little bit floating, so he walks. Mandy gives him a funny look when she sees him from the hallway, walking into the apartment at 3:00 in the goddamn morning, but he just rolls his eyes at her and shakes his head a little. She smiles and winks at him and takes her glass of water back to her room. 

 

Two days later he whispers into the dark of his room when he finally puts his pencil down and there’s nothing but silence around him, “You might be gay, kid.” It feels like poison and freedom and he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

 

Mandy graduates. Two in a fucking row, she fucking graduates, it’s a goddamn miracle. She graduates, and she’s got her own set of scholarships to USF where she’s decided to get a degree in Social Work, and they celebrate. Iggy brings home a case of beer and Mickey takes his siblings to his tattoo shop. The owner raises an eyebrow when Mickey introduces the dark haired girl he’s seen sitting outside at the ends of Mickey’s shifts and recognizes the young man with the blonde crew cut and the shitty prison tattoos littering his skin as the guardian who signed off on Mickey’s cover up. With careful precision, Mickey inks лояльність above both their hearts. The same loyalty tattoo that he had cleaned up two weeks into his apprenticeship. The blonde guy is looking at Mickey with something that looks like pride, like apology, like love, and the dark haired girl is watching her older brother with awe, like he hung the sun, the moon, and all the stars, and the shop owner knows better than to ask, but he wonders how these kids ended up here together with their hunched shoulders and their stiff upper lips. There’s scars criss crossed over all their bodies and when it rains for days on end, Mickey comes in with a brace on his left wrist and a look that dares anyone to ask questions about it. A month later, Mickey gets a bunch of blue violets tattooed on his ribcage, “worthy to be loved” inscribed on a ribbon tying them together. A suntanned girl walking by asks him why violets and he cuts out through clenched teeth that they’re the Illinois state flower and that she really shouldn’t ask stupid questions. The piercer, a dark haired woman with a face full of jewelry who looks so much like Mandy it kinda trips Mickey out a little (enough that he let her pierce his nose because she gave him the same puppy dog look Mandy gives, and told him he’d be hot with a nose ring), walks by and tells him that the name Amanda means “worthy to be loved.”

“I fucking know. Do I look stupid to you?” He grits out, eyes rolling in spite of the pain.

“Isn’t your sister’s name…” She starts.

“What did I  _ just  _ say about asking stupid questions?” He presses his head back into the chair and bites his lip, while the artist’s gun buzzes and the guy rolls his eyes because he learned like a year ago that the kid hates being asked questions.

But he preens when the tattoo is done, bright and well-lined and fucking BEAUTIFUL, thank you. Worthy to be loved, indeed. 


	2. Ian Gallagher, Middle Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning, from Ian's perspective.

Ian Gallagher starts kindergarten with Lip’s old t-shirt and jeans, second-hand sneakers, a second-hand backpack, and a whole lot of hope. He’s 5 years old, the quintessential middle child, skinny, redheaded son of Monica and Frank Gallagher. Doted on by Fiona, teased by Lip, and clung to by Deb. 

He walks up to the classroom, staring at a girl about his age with dark braided pigtails and a boy about Lip’s age with jet black hair, a scowling face, and an angry looking black eye. He wanted to know if the boy’s hair felt as soft as it looked, but he hears Lip’s voice and pulls himself back to his siblings.

Lip’s telling Fi to stop worrying, “Fi, he’ll be fiiiine,” and Ian desperately wants that to be true. 

Fi starts to argue, “Right, but…”

So he cuts her off. He has to, or he’ll lose his courage and probably his breakfast. And Fi made pancakes. “Fiona, I’m fine. Please.”

The dark haired boy tells his little sister - they have to be siblings. They have the same hair, same angry determined look in their eyes - “Don’t get into any fights you can’t win.”

Ian hugs his older sister, ducks away from the slap Lip is aiming at the back of his head, and walks into the classroom. The dark haired girl is right behind him, and he sits next to her on the faded multi-colored carpet the teacher is directing them to. The teacher has hair like Fiona’s and a tired face. Ian turns to the dark haired girl with her pink backpack and smiles.

“I’m Ian,” he says, his grin a little lopsided and wobbly.

“Mandy Milkovich.” She said with a forceful voice older than her body and a daring look in her eyes. 

Ian knows he’s heard that name, but he can’t place it, so he asks with a bright voice, “Do you want to be my friend?” because he’s never had a friend before, except for Lip, and Lip is kind of boring and mean sometimes. 

She shrugs and nods. They sit together at lunch and he shares his broken crayons with her and sometimes half of his peanut butter sandwich when she doesn’t have one. He can feel Mandy’s scowling older brother staring at them sometimes, but something about it makes him feel safe, like the baseball bat next to his front door at home, so he shrugs it off. 

The teacher praises him for his reading ability and Fi smiles at him, so big and bright, and takes him to the library on some Saturdays with Deb in a baby stroller. Then Carl is born, the library trips stop, and Ian’s Saturdays are spent stealing baby formula with Fiona’s friend Vee. Sometimes, Mandy spends the night.

 

In second grade, one of the kids in Ian’s class is making fun of him - for his red hair, for his family, his drunken dad, his siblings, for being too smart or something. He’s sitting on the playground bench, eyes closed, not saying a word in response, fists clenched. He wants to hit the kid, but Fiona told him not to get in fights, and he’s trying to be good. Lip is nowhere to be found, and even Mandy ran off. 

The kid - Ian’s pretty sure his name is Randy - shouts, “I bet Frank’s not even your real dad!” 

Ian launches off his seat. It’s not like he didn’t wonder the same thing himself, after the third time he realized he was the only one Frank ever hit, but like hell this kid could say it. But before he could get a hit in edgewise, Randy’s been knocked clean over. 

Mickey Milkovich, Mandy’s older brother, is standing there shaking his hand out. “Brave words coming from a kid who’s never even met his mama.” 

Randy’s got a bloody upper lip, and hasn’t moved from the dirty ground. 

“Oh, yeah.” Mickey says, voice casual, kicking the kid in the gut with a bored expression on his face. “Came over here to tell you - your brother, he owes me money. I came to collect. He ran. Can’t run forever, though, can he? Anyway, until I get my money, you get the beatdown. Cool?” Kicks the kid again. Then he leans down, grabs the kid by the collar, faces inches from each other. He’s glaring now. Then he headbutts the kid. “That one is for not even having creative insults. Leave my sister’s friends alone, dumbass.” 

Then he turns to Ian, face carefully bored again. “Next time, just fucking deck the assholes. Only thing they listen to.” 

Word spreads. Leave Mandy Milkovich and that redhead she hangs out with alone, unless you want to incur the wrath of Mickey Milkovich’s angry fists. Mickey still teaches Ian how to throw a punch, and that’s all he says about it. Ian smiles to himself, staring at the dark ceiling in the room he shares with his brothers, some nights, when he thinks about the way Mickey came out of nowhere and punched the guy, strands of jet black hair falling in his face. 

 

In fourth grade, Mandy asks Ian when his birthday is and he shrugs. 

“You don’t know?” She asks, incredulous. He just learned that word - incredulous - and it makes him feel important. 

They’re laying on their backs on the empty baseball field and he stares at a particularly interesting cloud above them. “I mean, we say it’s the first of August.”

“You say?”

He sighs and sits up, legs crossed and head in his hands. “Fiona was only six when I was born. Lip was 2. Monica was on a bender and gave birth on the living room floor. This old lady that used to live next door cut the cord and wrapped me up and stuff, but she barely remembers her own name, let alone the day I was born. Plus, she’s dead now. So, no one actually remembers or knows or whatever, because Fi was only six and Monica was too coked out to even realize she was giving birth, and that old lady just handed me to Fi and left. Fi’s pretty sure it was the beginning of August because she missed the first couple days of school.”

Mandy whistles low. “Holy shit, Ian.” She’s swearing, now. Her older brothers do it, her dad does it, and it makes her feel cool and important. 

Ian just shrugs. “Not like we celebrate birthdays anyway. No money. But Fi makes me pancakes, so. It’s fine.” 

“When I was 4, I found my mom dead on the front porch from an overdose.” She offers. This is just how it is, here, she’s realized. Tragedy for tragedy. Everyone has one. “And Mickey went to juvie last night.”

“Damn…” Ian mutters. 

He’s ten years old, he’s not sure when his birthday is, he’s not sure Frank is really his dad, he’s not sure his mom loves him, but he knows one thing for sure. He wants to get the hell out of the South Side one day.

 

One day in 5th grade, he meets Mandy on the corner so they can walk to school - they do this now, each pretending they’re protecting each other. Mickey’s with Mandy, and his face is bloody and he’s limping and he’s got a massive bruise on the side of his head. The older kid looks like he’s been pushed face first into a meat grinder. Ian asks what happened before he has the self control to stop himself. 

“Mind your own fucking business, Carrot Top. No one fucking asked you.” Mickey looks pained, hissing around his busted lip.

Mandy rolls her eyes but looks soft at her brother, and Ian wonders what the fuck goes on in their house. “Jesus, Mick. He just asked a question. You’re such a dick.” They walk into the school and Ian never gets his answer. 

 

Ian’s in 6th grade when Monica comes home with another kid. She claims he’s Frank’s, too, but Ian looks at the tiny little boy, skin like chocolate, in Fiona’s arms, and raises his eyebrows at Lip. Then Carl is lighting one of Deb’s dolls on fire and he forgets to question the whole thing because he’s trying to figure out where his 6 year old brother got a flame torch and that crazed look in his eyes. What’s one more mouth to feed, anyway. 

Mickey walks into the middle school after a few weeks in Juvie and Ian can see the letters etched into his skin and his face flushes. A girl in Ian’s geometry class wants to know if he wants to make out, but he shakes his head, mutters something about taking care of his younger siblings, and rushes home, trying to push the images of tattooed fingers running through dark hair out of his mind. 

 

The summer after 7th grade is ridiculously hot and Ian’s never been more grateful for the shitty above-ground pool in his backyard. Mandy comes over nearly every day because Mickey’s in juvie again and Terry’s drunk all the time and her house doesn’t have AC. Late one night, they’re laying in the back of the van behind their house, smoking Lip’s pot, and Mandy asks Ian if he wants to make out. 

He chokes on smoke. Fuck. Fucking fuck. He’s too high for this. “Mandy…” he mutters when he’s finally stopped choking. 

“What?” She growls, sitting up abruptly. “Am I that repulsive to you?”

He blinks, shock and confusion spreading around the high in his mind. “Mandy, I’m gay.” He whispers into the quiet van. 

Mandy’s face runs through a myriad of emotions - horror, confusion, fear, and then finally amusement. “You’re kidding me.”

He shakes his head, sort of sadly. “I’m… sorry?” He hopes this doesn’t lose him his best and only friend. 

“You better never let Terry hear you say that.” Is all she says, and then she lays back down and relights the joint. 

“I’m not fucking stupid, you know.” He takes it from her. 

The next day, Mickey comes home from juvie and Mandy’s elated. The day after that, she comes back over with her jaw tight and says nothing for several hours. Ian knows better than to question it, so he just lights up a joint and passes it to her without a word. They swim after lunch and she’s smiling tentatively by the time she says she has to go home. It’s only mid afternoon, but Ian offers to walk her home. They’re walking down the cracked sidewalk, and Ian’s rambling about nothing, the way he always does. They’re nearing the Milkovich house, and Mickey and one of Mandy’s other brothers, a blonde kid about Fiona’s age, Iggy, he thinks, are walking from the other direction.

“Ey, it’s Red.” Iggy shoves Ian with his shoulder when they get closer, and he stumbles a little. 

“Uh, hey.” he feels his face turn red under his freckles.

Mickey says nothing. 

“I'll see you later, Ian.” Mandy says, quietly, when they've reached the Milkovich front stoop. Terry's inside and they can hear his drunken rambling from out here. 

“Uh, sure.” He says, hands deep in the pockets of his frayed cargo shorts. “Bye Mandy.” He looks up at Mickey for a second - he realizes that their are gazes even, despite the fact that Ian's two years younger than the dark haired boy. He starts to say something else, but Mickey puffs out his chest, so Ian just shuts his mouth again and looks back at the cracked sidewalk, and then walks away. 

Mandy had agreed to come over the next afternoon - they were gonna sneak into a movie together, and it’s like 2 hours past the time she said she’d be there. The movie is like half over, but he doesn’t care about that. He’s got this prickly feeling that something happened to her curling up the back of his neck. So, he walks to the Milkovich house, even though he knows he shouldn’t, and knocks on the faded door with peeling paint. 

The door cracks open and he sees a shock of dark hair, and then the door is wrenched completely open. 

“The fuck you want, Carrot Top?” Mickey is glaring at him, bright blue eyes glittering.

“Oh. Uh. Uhm.” Ian knows he’s stuttering, but he forgets what he was gonna say. 

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ Gallagher, I'm going grey here what the fuck do you need?” 

He stumbles against the door frame. “I was just looking for Mandy. She...was supposed to come hang out?”

Mickey scrubs his face with the hand not white knuckling the door. Then he looks like something occurred to him. “Hey kid, you got a fucking sofa or something?” 

“The fuck?” Ian feels like he just got whiplash.

“Jesus fucking Christ, do you have a fucking…”

Ian cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, why?” 

Mickey thinks for a second. “Listen, Mandy got sick, Dad's out, Iggy and I gotta take care of some shit tonight. She shouldn't be here alone. Can she crash on your fucking couch or nah?” 

Ian feels his face pale. He was right. Something happened to Mandy. “Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah. What happened?” 

“Don't ask stupid fucking questions.” Mickey slides his shoes on and then turns on his heel. 

Ian stands in the doorway, staring at the blonde teenager across the room, unsure of whether he should move or not, terrified and more than a little confused. 

Mickey returns with his sister cradled in his arms and Ian’s gut twists. Mickey points to a pair of cheap flip flops and instructs Ian to pick them up and lead the way. It’s the middle of summer and hot as fucking balls and Ian’s terrified and he doesn’t really know why, but the sweat dripping down his back is one part humid Chicago summer and two parts bone chilling fear. But he leads Mickey to the faded yellow house, in the front door, up the stairs, past Deb and Carl in the living room. Lip is on his bed, laying back and staring at the ceiling, joint in his mouth. 

He sits up when the odd trio walks in. “What the fuck, Ian?” 

“Shut the fuck up, Lip. She's sick, she's staying the night here, don't ask questions.” Ian squares his shoulders, chin out, and points Mickey to the bed. 

Lip shrugs, eyes glazed. “Yeah what the fuck ever. I don't give a shit. Think there's soup in the fridge. Don't steal anything, Mickey.” 

Ian rolls his eyes and flips his brother off, pretending to ignore Mickey tucking his sister in gently. He hears the older boy mutter softly “I'll be back in the morning, I promise.” Then Mickey turns to him and Lip, a glare across his face, and Ian stumbles back a little. “I'll be back in the morning. If anyone other than me, or Iggy, asks, you never saw me, or her. She's not here.” 

“Why…?” Ian asks, before he can stop himself.

“What did I say about stupid fucking questions, Gallagher?”

He shrugs. “Yeah alright. Everything okay?”

Mickey just raises his eyebrows and walks away. Lip puffs on the joint, and Ian runs back down the stairs to heat up some soup and grab some crackers. Fiona’s in the kitchen feeding Liam and looks up when he’s digging through the fridge. 

“Did I just see Mickey Milkovich leave?” She sounds suspicious. 

Ian just shrugs. 

“Ugh, fine. Don’t do anything stupid.” She goes back to feeding Liam. “Why are you making soup?” She asks, looking up again. 

Ian just shrugs again. There are circles under Fiona’s eyes and she looks like she’s about to fall asleep, so luckily she doesn’t push it. 

The soup goes cold and Mandy eats a couple crackers and Ian knows better than to ask her what the fuck happened. Lip stares on sort of curiously for a couple minutes, then shrugs and leaves without a word. Ian falls asleep curled around Mandy’s gently shivering body and she’s clinging to his hand hard enough that he’s sure he’s going to bruise. The next morning, he wakes up to Carl screaming down the stairs and Liam crying. He unravels himself from Mandy, shakes her gently. 

“Mands, you want some breakfast?” He asks, softly, under the volume of Debbie trying to calm the baby. 

She just shakes her head and pulls the blankets back over her head.

Ian’s nearly out the door when he hears her voice, croaky and tired. “Thanks, Ian.” She’s not looking at him. 

“Of course, Mandy.”

Then he goes downstairs. Fiona is on her way out the door, Lip is pouring coffee, and Ian takes over making pancakes while Debbie feeds Liam and then takes the baby upstairs to change him. He’s trying to get Carl to sit down, and finally there are enough pancakes for people to start eating when he hears a knock at the door. Carl races to open it. 

“Ian, why the fuck is Mandy’s brother here?” Ian hears his brother shout at the top of his lungs. 

He jerks up, ignoring the syrup dripping from his fork when he drops it on the table and starts pouring a mug of coffee. “Oh, hey Mickey. Mandy’s still asleep. Want some pancakes? Fiona made coffee.”

Mickey’s eyebrow approaches his hairline, but he seems to accept the coffee without realizing he’s done it. He takes a sip, and Lip is staring at the him and Ian just wants to slap his hand over his older brother’s mouth. 

“Kid’s pretty fucking sick, hasn’t said a word. Looks like she saw a ghost. Should take her to a doctor.” Lip says before Ian gets a chance to tell him to shut up.

“You fuckin’ done, dumbass?” Mickey quickly drains the coffee and places the mug, none too gently, on the counter. “She still upstairs?” He asks, and then, without waiting for Ian to answer, starts up the stairs. Ian follows him upstairs, and Debbie races past, a confused look on her face. 

Mickey stops abruptly just inside Ian’s room and Ian almost runs into him. Mandy is staring at the ceiling when they get in. 

“Hey, Mandy. How you fuckin’ feeling?” Mickey asks with a softness Ian hadn’t realized he was capable of. 

She just rolls her head over and stares at him. Ian feels a little like laughing at the look she’s giving her older brother. 

“You gonna walk or do I gotta carry your heavy ass again?” Mickey asks.

She rolls her eyes and then pushes herself up onto her feet, wobbling just a little. Ian hands her the flip flops he’d carried yesterday and realizes he’s never seen her look so small. She gives him the hint of a smile and reaches up to weakly ruffle his red curls. So, he smiles big and bright and squeezes her arm. They walk down the stairs together. Before they walk out the door, Mickey turns to the Ian. 

“You never saw us, we were never here. For your own fucking sake, kid, remember that.”

Ian just raises one eyebrow and nods, unsure of what to say.

Then they’re gone. 

 

Two days pass, and Ian’s seen neither hide nor hair of Mandy, or her dark haired brother, or Iggy. He walks by the house and there’s absolutely no movement, it seems nearly dead. He doesn’t risk knocking. Another three days pass, and Kevin, Fiona’s friend Vee’s new boyfriend, comes bursting in to the Gallagher house, clutching at a stitch in his side and half laughing, half panting. 

Between breaths, he gasps out. “You’ll...never guess...what I just heard…” 

Vee and Fiona share an amused look. Ian feels dread fill his body. Kevin sits down on the end of the sofa. 

“So I was at the Alibi -” he starts. 

“It’s such bullshit that they’re letting you work there, you’re not even old enough.” Fiona interjects, rolling her eyes. 

“Nearly, and besides, who cares, it’s the Alibi.” Kevin retorts with a wave of his hand. “So I was at the Alibi, and in walks Terry Milkovich in a fucking rage.”

Ian’s stomach is somewhere near his stomach. 

“Apparently, from what I could gather, his three youngest kids skipped town while he was gone. Just fucking left without a word. No one even realized for almost a fucking week.”

Vee whistles low. Fiona’s eyes are wide. “Holy shit.” She whispers. 

Lip looks across the room at Ian with a pointed look, and Ian just shrugs minutely. He had no fucking clue. 

“Weren’t you friends with Mandy?” Fiona asks, looking at Ian. 

“Yeah, I was just starting to get freaked out because I hadn’t heard from her in like, 5 days. I had no fucking clue.” He says, his hands starting to shake. 

“Damn…” Vee intones. 

“Yeah, anyway, Terry got carted off to jail for assault and destruction of property and like five other things and also a lifetime ban from the Alibi because he smashed up like half the fucking bar.” Kevin finishes. 

Ian wanders outside and Lip follows him. He sits hard on the steps outside and stares at the sky. 

“You really had no idea, huh?” Lip asks, genuine, handing Ian his lit joint. 

Ian shakes his head, breathing in the sweet smoke. He lets out the breath after a second, staring at his brother through the haze. “I wonder what the fuck happened.”

“I don’t think Mandy was sick, you know?”

“Yeah.” 

 

He tries not to think about it, when he finishes middle school alone. It’s lonely and he gets into way more fights now that word’s out that Mickey Milkovich is no longer there to kick the ass of any dumbass who messes with his little sister’s best friend. So he gives one kid a bloody nose and another one a black eye and after a while people leave him alone again. 

 

On the first day of ninth grade, Ian walks Liam to daycare, and then takes Debbie and Carl to their elementary school after forcing Carl to hand over the switchblade he was keeping in his pocket and making sure Debbie had her lunch. He signs up for JROTC because he thinks maybe he ought to, and he still really wants to get out of the South Side. 

It feels good, Ian thinks, a good kind of sore and tired and working hard. He feels strong, like he’s working towards something. And the uniform looks sharp. He loses his virginity to one of the other guys in his unit under the bleachers and doesn’t feel sad that the guy is graduating in the spring. He wonders if he’ll ever get out of the South Side.

Ian gets a job, after school and on the weekends, at the Kash ‘n Grab on the corner. He wonders, passively, what Mandy or, better yet, Mickey, would say if they found out he was fucking his married boss in the back room after work, but they’re not here and he’s bored and 15 and horny and gay and he hates himself, so why the fuck not. 

 

At the beginning of Ian’s sophomore year, he overhears Lip telling Fiona he won’t go to college so that he can help out with money, and Fiona telling him he’s crazy. Lip tells their older sister he’s made up his mind. Ian goes to the library and applies to schools for his older brother, spending an entire week on applications. One of them ought to have a shot, and some days, Ian feels like maybe he won’t ever make it past 16, so why shouldn’t Lip have this chance.

Carl goes to juvie for selling drugs. Monica and Frank show up at Christmas.

Two weeks after New Year’s, Ian lays in bed for two days straight. He knows he should go to school, but it feels like his body is made out of lead and he can’t make himself go. He’s not sure if he wants to die, or if he wants to just lay in this bed forever, let it claim him, but it’s painful. Fiona keeps taking his temperature and Lip tries dragging him out of the narrow twin bed until Ian screams at him in a hoarse voice to just “leave me the fuck alone!” Debbie brings him soup but he doesn’t eat it. He sort of hopes they’ll give up. 

Finally, he drags himself out of bed, showers, eats some toast, and goes back to school. His grades drop. He finds his way to a club downtown spilling over with attractive gay men, and he has faceless, nameless sex more times than he wants to count.

A couple months later, Lip gets his acceptance letters from Chicago Polytechnic University, as well as MIT and several other universities and is sitting, staring at the letters on the kitchen table when Ian comes home from work. 

“How in the hell did I get into college? I didn’t apply.” Lip states, almost shocked, when he notices Ian. 

Ian just smiles, one eyebrow raised. “You’re welcome, dumbass.”

The look on his older brother’s face - a mix of shock, confusion, and pride - makes the whole stupid thing worth it. 

When Lip graduates high school, Fiona’s ecstatic and Ian hasn’t slept in a week. He feels like the blood in his veins is too thick, running to fast, his body is a live wire and his brain is buzzing like a neon sign. Fiona places Lip’s framed diploma on the mantle, and Ian runs miles at a time. Carl comes home from juvie. 

Ian’s standing in the bathroom, staring at a face he barely recognizes in the mirror, eyes too wide, too crazy, hair too long, lips dry and cracked. He thinks of Monica, bleeding out on the kitchen floor, and hates himself. Hates himself because suddenly that feels like the right idea. There’s too much blood in his veins, it’s moving too fast, and he has to get it out. He picks up a razor before he’s sure what he’s doing.

His hand is shaking, but it’s a rush when the blood starts to pour out over his arm. He steadies himself, feels his blood pulse and throb and something in the back of his mind registers something that might be pain. But it feels so good, he feels so alive. He makes another cut, deeper this time, and then another. He’s starting to get a little woozy. The bathroom door crashes open and he realizes he forgot to lock it. A scream. It might be Debbie.

He wakes up in a hospital, with a bandage on his arm and a needle in one of the veins in the opposite hand. Fiona and Lip are next to him. There’s a doctor asking him and Fiona questions that make his head spin and before he knows what’s happening he’s shuffling down a hallway in his socks and the doctors are talking to him and someone says bipolar disorder and Ian feels his entire body shut down. 

Fi brings everyone to visit, and he holds Liam in his lap despite that the boy is getting too big for this now, eyes heavy with the medicine. The doctors let him out three days later with a prescription and a diagnosis that makes him want to vomit. 

Fiona fills the prescription and Ian’s overcome with the urge to flush the pills down the toilet. Lip tells him not to be stupid, Debbie pleads, Fiona demands. Then Carl comes to his bed late one night, shaved head and a mouth full of 11 year old wisdom. 

“What’s it like?” the boy asks, swimming in his too-big hand-me-downs.

“Huh?” Ian looks up from the nothing he was doing. 

“The doctors say you got bipolar, right? Like Monica?”

Ian glares. 

Carl charges on. That kid never did have any self-preservation. “I’m just saying, like. What do you feel like? Fi said you couldn’t get out of bed a couple times? And I know you weren’t sleeping when I got back, you’re not as quiet as you think.”

Ian thinks about it for a second. “It’s like… I don’t know, like being made of lead. Like wanting the world to swallow you up because you just can’t do it anymore, it’s too much, too heavy. And then it’s like I’m fucking god. Like I am god and I’m fucking god, but there’s too much blood in my body, it’s moving too fast, and I can’t slow down. And then it’s normal for a little bit and I crash again.”

Carl pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of his worn book bag. It’s a print out of the symptoms of bipolar disorder. “I looked it up at the library. Turns out you’re certifiable, man.” The kid waves the paper at him, half a laugh across his face. 

Ian grumbles out an “I’m fucking fine, I don’t need the meds.”

“You know.” Carl says, standing up. “We’re all fucking crazy, dumbass. At least your crazy has a cause. It can be medicated, fixed a little bit.”

And with that, he’s gone. 

Ian goes downstairs and lets Fiona give him his meds. 

 

He hates it. Fuck, he fucking hates it. They make him shake and his appetite is all over the place, and his sex drive is kinda shot every time they change the dose, for like, a while. But the racing in his brain stops, the violent urge to just stop existing. And every time Fiona acts like he’s a wounded puppy, he thinks of Carl reminding him that his crazy is fixable. He wonders what Mandy would say. He thinks Mickey probably wouldn’t treat him like he was spun glass, because that asshole never treated anyone like spun glass. 

 

At the beginning of his junior year, Lip’s in college and Liam’s starting kindergarten and still doesn’t speak. Ian drops out of JROTC, because that’s kinda fuckin’ pointless now - West Point will never accept him on Lithium. But the cross country coach approaches him and asks if he wants to join. He’s got the legs for it, and the bored-sounding doctor at the clinic downtown said exercise would help. Exercise and sunlight. So he runs and he looks for schools where it’s sunny. He quits the Kash ‘n Grab when Linda catches him and Kash, and gets a job at the library stocking books. 

Ian turns 18 and immediately takes an EMT course. He passes, they offer him a part time gig after school and on the weekends. He quits the library, it sucked anyway. Fiona and Vee negotiate him down to just weekends, because he’s still got practice and school and they’ll be damned if he doesn’t graduate. So two nights a week, he puts on the blue uniform and saves lives for 12 hours at a time.

At the start of his senior year, the cross country coach asks Ian where he wants to go to school. He sorta shrugs and tells the man, somewhere warm. They send his times to the coaches at schools in Georgia, Florida, and one in southern California. He’s got no damn clue what he wants to study - maybe nursing, help people out. But Fiona and Lip and Vee spend hours with him working on applications and scholarships and Deb promises not to cry when he leaves. Not if. When. Carl’s just smirking at him from the living room.

 

And then Ian’s graduating high school with an almost-full ride to a school in Tampa, he got accepted to their nursing program, and a framed picture of the whole Gallagher family - all his siblings and Vee and Kevin - surrounding him in his cap and gown. Fiona puts his diploma next to Lip’s on the mantle and despite whatever Carl just said, he’s definitely NOT crying, you little shit. 

Kevin gets him a shitty little car, and he doesn’t ask where it came from. He works as much as he can, taking shifts whenever possible, and saves up money for his big move. He buys a cheap laptop, Lip gives him a little stash of weed, and Carl gives him his favorite switchblade. And then, 19 years old and more than a little terrified, he drives, by himself, in a car full of everything he owns (it’s really not much, he realizes), from Chicago to Tampa. He stops for one night in the parking lot of a dark WalMart just outside Nashville and falls asleep in the car. 

 

He moves into a cinder block walled dorm room with a giant weeping willow tree right outside it and a roommate that never shows up. He puts the picture up on the dresser at the foot of his bed. It’s a short walk to the beach and the first night he goes for a run next to the water. He sends a picture of the sunset over the water to Vee to show the rest of his family and the warmth from the fading sun soaks into his skin and he thinks this was probably a good choice, as he jogs back to his dorm. He showers, kind of smiling as he passes people in the hallway. Back in his room, he takes his medicine when the alarm on his phone goes off and wraps himself in a blanket until the shaking fades. There’s a banging down the hall, and someone is stomping on the floor above him, and he can hear shouting outside, and it kind of reminds him of home, and he falls asleep staring at the picture of his family. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: thececimonster
> 
> Kudos and comments give me life! Xoxo


	3. It Feels Like Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To quote my friend Jimmy, "REC. OG. NITION!!!!!!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every page break changes the perspective. It flips back and forth between Ian and Mickey (tho there is one that's Mandy), sorry if it's confusing.
> 
> There's some depictions of violence, Mickey talks about what happened to Mandy, and Terry's death is mentioned.

The first thing Ian notices about Florida is that it’s hot. Like, swamp air hot. He grew up thinking the South Side was hot in the summer, and it was. It smelled horrible, too, like old gym socks and body odor and stale liquor. But nothing was hot like this was hot. He goes running with the cross country team at 6:30 in the fucking morning and it’s still just unbelievably hot, somehow. He can’t cover his arms, it’s too goddamn hot, and he knows his teammates see the scars but luckily no one asks, so he keeps running without a shirt on and a bandana to keep the sweat out of his fucking eyes, because this shit is brutal and he finds himself wishing for snow somehow. But the campus has a volunteer Emergency Medical Services association and a volunteer emergency response team that he signs up for at some club fair thing the day before classes starts. There’s a GSA set up at a table and the guy running it is beautiful, all dark hair and broad shoulders, so Ian takes a flyer and flushes a little when the guy winks at him, but he doesn’t sign the email list.

He manages to find all the classes on his course list the evening before the first day of classes - he’s in a tank top and shorts and he’s still sweating, the sun just must be brighter here somehow, but it’s been a week and he thinks maybe he’s starting to get used to it. If everyone would just stop blasting the air conditioning. His course list is a bunch of general education requirements, but Ian’s pretty excited about the psych class he has to take and the anatomy and physiology lab he has to take. Carl had been obscenely jealous of that one until Ian pointed out that the cadavers wouldn’t happen for at least a couple of semesters. 

So he eats dinner with a couple of the other freshman on his cross country team and one emails his EMT qualifications to the person in charge of the campus emergency response team, and showers, again. He texts Lip to ask if his older brother has any “first day of college classes” advice, but the older Gallagher brother just tells him to find a hot professor to have sex with, so Ian decides that’s generally a bad idea, and calls Fiona instead.

“Ian!” She cries, phone line a little static. “How is everything?” The unspoken “Are you still taking your meds” lies somewhere under her excitement and he rolls his eyes. 

“I signed up for the campus emergency medical response team and found a psych doctor here on campus that can prescribe my meds.” He doesn’t need to offer that last bit, he knows, but she worries and he’s never been this far away from home, no Gallagher ever has, so he wants to make her worry less. 

“That’s so good! Your qualifications are still good down there?” Her voice is cheery and he knows she cares more about the meds than the EMT thing, but he likes that she’s pretending so he lets her. 

They chat for a minute and he asks if the kids are home. She calls for Deb and Carl and Liam, and he hears the familiar stampede on the other end of the line. And then Liam’s asking about alligators, Deb’s voice is a little teary when she says she missing him, and Carl’s asking him if he’s seen any hot babes.

“I haven’t seen any alligators yet, but I’ll take a picture if I do, I miss you all too - I’ll send you some sand or something soon, and yeah, the beach is packed with hot shirtless dudes, Carl, you want me to send pictures?”

Carl’s flubbering around his words and Debbie is laughing now, and he can hear Fiona’s smile when she’s telling Carl to take Liam to bed. Debs asks if he’s seen a palm tree and he talks to his little sister a little while longer and then sends her to bed and tells Fiona he’s fine, really, he promises, but he’s got class in the morning, so he’s gonna go to sleep. She wishes him luck and he listens to the loud dorm building sounds, the noise from outside, and falls asleep with a smile on his face again. 

***

 

Campus was huge, Mandy knew that. She knew it was huge from visiting with Mickey a couple times. But she hadn’t really accounted for just how huge when you were trying to find some fucking Freshman Composition class, so she’s nearly late by the time she finds the classroom she’s supposed to be in. She’s sweating and the salt stings at a scrape she got on her shoulder from surfing, but she’s in fucking college and Mickey had insisted on dropping her off even though he didn’t have class for another 3 hours because he was lame as hell and he had even smiled this dopey ass smile at her and punched her arm in a way that she knew meant he was proud of her. So she slides into the only available open seat in the surprisingly small classroom, next to this tall ass redhead with broad shoulders under a thin hoodie, which, what the fuck dude, it’s like 100 degrees outside, but his jaw could cut someone, so when he turns in his seat she winks at him. His eyes just widen, bright green and fucking huge, and something about him is so familiar but Mandy can’t place it, so she smirks and then the professor is talking. 

The professor, an old lady in a peasant skirt with wispy grey hair and horn rimmed glasses, is instructing them to go around and introduce themselves. Their name, their major, and 3 fun facts about themselves, and Mandy’s rolling her eyes. She looks up at the kid next to her - my god the fucker has to be like 7 feet tall, he’s slouching in his seat and she still has to look up to catch his eye - and he’s giving her a look like “this is such bullshit,” and she kinda laughs, because yeah, same. She feels her phone buzz and it’s a text from Mickey asking if she got to class okay. 

Texting without getting caught is a skill she perfected somewhere around 10th grade, so she responds quickly, ignoring the beginning of this bizarre circle jerk. “Only got lost like a half dozen fucking times. English prof is batty as hell, she’s making us fucking introduce ourselves. There’s a tall ass redhead next to me with a jaw you could cut diamonds with. You’d jizz your pants.”

“You’re disgusting. I regret ever talking to you about guys.”

“You love me, don’t lie, Mick.” Then she thinks for a second and sends another text before he can respond. “And thanks for dropping me off. Now if you could just convince Iggy to get me a car…”

“Not fucking likely.”

And then she realizes the redhead is talking, “...nursing major and an EMT, and, uh… I’m from Chicago originally, I’m one of six kids,” (he pauses with a smirk Mandy recognizes from somewhere and shit, Chicago, she hasn’t met anyone from Chicago in ages, she wonders where from - probably the North Side, or some suburb) “And, uh. I’m on the cross country team?”

Just as Mandy is thinking that the whole EMT thing is kinda hot, she realizes he’s looking at her expectantly and it’s her turn. “I’m Mandy, studying children’s mental health. Weirdly,” She looks at the kind of freaked out looking redhead next to her, “I’m from Chicago originally, too, but I’ve been in Tampa since I was a kid. Uh, I have two older brothers, and, uh… I work at a coffee shop.”

The professor looks at her over those hideous horn rimmed glasses and asks in her soft voice, “Mandy, your last name?” She lifts a piece of paper. “For the roll.”

“Oh, it’s Milkovich. Amanda Milkovich.”

She hears a gasp beside her, but the next person is talking and then the professor is handing out syllabi and she gets distracted by the sheer amount of reading she’s about to have to do. 

 

***

 

Just as his Freshman Composition class is about to start, a dark haired girl with a “fuck you” smirk on her face and a scrape on her left shoulder slides into the seat next to Ian. She looks faintly familiar somehow, and he knows he’s staring - part of him is wondering if maybe she’s got a brother - but he can’t help it. He tugs on the sleeves of his thin hoodie, thankful for the freezing air conditioner. She catches his eye and fucking winks, and he feels his eyes widen. 

The professor, who looks like exactly what he’s pretty sure English teachers are supposed to look like, is instructing them to go around the room, state their name, their major, and 3 fun facts about themselves. This is only the second time today he’s had to do this and he’s already over it. He looks over at the dark-haired girl again and the look on her face is exactly what he’s thinking so he grimaces and rolls his eyes in the direction of the professor and she kinda laughs. Then she’s texting someone under the table and he tries to focus on the people talking. 

It’s his turn. He hates this. “Uh, hi. Uh. My name is Ian Gallagher, I’m a nursing major and an EMT and, uh… I’m from Chicago originally, I’m one of six kids” (he pauses and bites back the “that we know of,” that he kind of wants to add with a smirk, but he’s thinking it and that’s probably enough), “And, uh. I’m on the cross country team?”

Then he’s looking at the girl next to him expectantly and she stumbles a bit, but starts talking. “I’m Mandy, studying children’s mental health. Weirdly,” She looks at him then, “I’m from Chicago originally, too, but I’ve been in Tampa since I was a kid. Uh, I have two older brothers, and, uh… I work at a coffee shop.” He wonders for a second if maybe he knew her from somewhere in Chicago, but it’s a big city and there’s not a lot of likelihood that she’s from the South Side and actually got out. He spares half a thought for Mandy and Mickey, who did leave, but god knows where they were now. 

The professor looks up, waving a piece of paper, and asks Mandy for her last name. 

“Oh, it’s Milkovich. Amanda Milkovich.” 

And Ian gasps. He’s frozen in his seat. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit, what are the odds. 

But they wind around the room and then the professor’s handing out syllabi and he can’t find a second to ask her and his head is spinning and he’s sure he’s missing important information about the class but he can’t find it in himself to care. Finally, the professor lets them go early. 

He turns in his seat to look at the girl texting with one hand and packing her shit with the other. “Mandy?” He asks, voice cracking a little. 

She just smirks at him. 

“Did...did you live on the South Side? And leave like, right after 7th grade?”

Her face pales and she recoils. And then recognition slides across her face. “No fucking way…” she whispers. “You’re… Ian? Ian fucking Gallagher? Holy fucking shit.”

He feels like his face is splitting in half and also like someone cleared rubble from his head and everything is settling and holy fucking shit. 

And then they’re hugging, and he kinda wants to cry but he just gives her his number, because she’s got to run to her next class. He’s got weight training anyway and then a meeting about the emergency services thing. But he promises to find her after her last class and they’ll have dinner and catch up.

 

***

 

Somehow, Mickey managed to fix his schedule up so he only had one class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, late enough that he could do a decent amount of work during the day and his homework. It just meant that Tuesdays and Thursdays would suck. But he dropped Mandy off and then sat in the campus coffee shop and drank shitty black coffee and worked on a sketch for this lady’s sternum piece until he had class. He texted his sister and dealt with her ribbing about redheads with jaws that could cut glass and realized about half an hour before he had to be in his figure drawing class that the sternum tattoo sketch had turned into a face with short curly hair and a sharp jaw. Frustrated, he packed his bag and made his way to the art building for his figure drawing class. 

The professor was a young guy - skinny as fuck with a plaid button down, sleeves rolled up, and shaggy dark hair. He was wearing skateboarding shoes and complimented Mickey’s half sleeves when he walked by. Mickey just grunted out a thanks, but in the back of his mind he prickled with pride, cuz yeah. He designed them. Of course they look fucking good.

He gets through class and his fingers are grey with pencil lead but he feels pretty good looking over the syllabus at the assignments. He pulls his phone out and there’s a text from Mandy informing him that she’s going to dinner with a friend so he doesn’t need to pick her up after her classes, because of fucking course she is. So fucking social. So he just goes home, orders a pizza for him and Iggy, drinks a beer on the sofa with his brother while they eat, and then works on finishing the sternum piece sketch. 

Mickey’s very nearly done, and Iggy is on the couch watching some action flick Mickey only half hears, a beer in one hand and his pipe in the other, and the door slams open. Mandy’s calling out and Mickey can’t really see her from where he’s sitting, but she’s so fucking loud and she sounds excited. 

“Guess what, fuckers!?” She cries, and then steps into the middle of the room dragging someone with her so she’s standing between him at the table and Iggy on the sofa and holy fucking SHIT. 

Mickey’s stomach drops somewhere near his socks because that’s… that’s the same fuckin’ kid Mandy used to hang out with back in Chicago, that’s got to be Gallagher and god DAMN Carrot Top grew the fuck UP. He opens his mouth and shuts it again and the voice of Terry Milkovich that he hasn’t heard in over a year is drunkenly slurring in his ear, screaming about worthless fucking faggots, and the scar under the violets on his rib cage seems to throb. Yeah, it’s one thing to go to the club and get fucked by a stranger he never has to see again, but he’s had a crush on this fuckin’ redhead since he was like 15 goddamn years old and that just won’t fuckin’ do.

But Mandy’s still talking, and Ian’s kinda staring at Mickey with a blush under his freckles. “You fuckers remember Ian Gallagher, right?” Iggy looks a little confused, but he’s stoned and drunk and dumb so of course he’s confused, but Mickey nods, mute, his eyes never leaving Ian’s bright green ones. “He’s in my fucking composition class. How fucking wild?”

They end up piled on the shitty sofa after Mandy makes Mickey put a shirt on because “nobody wants to fucking see that shit, Mick,” and Mickey has more beer than he really should and notices the redhead isn’t drinking and is wearing some damn hoodie thing even though it’s about a million damn degrees, but the movie is decent and they’re catching up, so he tries to ignore it.

He learns that Ian runs cross country now, he’s an EMT now - he tries to ignore the images that procures of Ian in a uniform, because the last thing he needs is an uncomfortable erection right now - he’s studying to be a nurse. He doesn’t say why he moved to Florida, really, when Mandy asks, something about the sun and warm and different and Mickey knows an evasion when he hears one, but you don’t ask questions people don’t want to answer, they all know that, so no one pushes it. He tells them about Lip in college and Carl going to military school maybe and Fiona, and Debbie, and shows them pictures of everyone and they laugh about how on earth Monica and Frank managed to make Liam, but the kid is brighter than sunshine, and Kevin owns the Alibi now, he and Vee got married. They don’t ask about Terry and Ian doesn’t share and it’s fine.

 

***

 

They eat dinner in the cafeteria on campus, and then Mandy insists on dragging Ian back to her apartment, where she lives with her brothers. She even offers to pay his bus fare so they don’t melt into the sidewalk, until he points out bus fare is free if you have a valid student ID. 

“It’s just Iggy and Mickey,” Mandy whines, and yeah, Mickey. That’s exactly what the fuck he’s afraid of, but he can’t tell Mandy he’s had a crush on her older brother since they were kids, and he can’t think of another excuse, so he lets her drag him to their shitty apartment. 

She throws the door open and it slams. “Guess what, fuckers!?” She cries as the door hits the wall behind it and Ian cringes as he’s dragged into the middle of an open room. 

There’s a blonde guy draped across the sofa, a pipe in one hand and a half-empty beer in the other, an action movie that might be  _ Fast and Furious 2 _ on the tv. And then. And then. Mickey’s sitting at the rickety kitchen table with a massive sketchbook open in front of him and he’s staring at Ian incredulously and Ian feels like he’s choking. He can’t stop staring at Mickey, at his dark hair, the sides shaved and artfully styled, the piercings in his ears and nose catching the light when he turns. He’s not wearing a shirt, and the tattoos inked across his body are bright and sharp and Ian is a hundred percent sure he can’t fucking breathe. Mandy’s still talking, but she might as well be miles away because Mickey’s bright blue eyes haven’t left his face and he’s nodding slightly, pressing his thumb against his nose in a reflexive movement Ian hasn’t seen since he was 12 years old and this feels like heaven and like choking. 

Mandy’s yelling at Mickey to put a shirt on, “Nobody wants to fucking see that shit, Mick!” and Ian almost tells her that he does, that Mickey should never put a shirt on, because the crush he’s had since he was 12 is back in full force and Mickey looks older, better, stronger, holy shit, but then Mickey turns to his room and Ian catches a glimpse of his ass and hot fucking damn but then he comes back tugging a shirt over his head and Ian forces himself to look away. 

They’re all piled on the sofa and Iggy offers Ian a beer but he refuses, makes some excuse about an early practice, and they’re half watching a movie, half talking. 

Ian learns that they left right after Mandy got sick that summer, but no further details are shared and he’s Southside enough, they’re Southside enough, that he knows better than to try to push it, you don’t ask those kind of questions where they’re from. Iggy is a mechanic now, and Mickey’s in  _ college, _ which kinda blows his mind, and he’s apprenticing at a tattoo shop, which makes way more sense, and Mandy’s smile is wider than it ever was when they were kids. He doesn’t mention Terry and they don’t ask, so he thinks maybe another day. 

 

It becomes a regular thing, when they’re not in class or at work, when Ian’s not at practice, he’s over at the Milkovich’s apartment. Sometimes it’s just him and Mandy, working on homework on the rickety kitchen table, sometimes Iggy’s there watching tv and smelling like motor oil, and he’ll order pizza and offer Ian a beer that he always refuses. Sometimes Mickey is there with his textbooks or his sketches and he sits with them at the kitchen table and it’s silent but for the tv on across the room and it kinda reminds Ian of home. 

One Saturday afternoon, mid-October even though it feels like summertime, Ian feels energy coiling at the bottom of his stomach and he can’t, he can’t sit still, and he doesn’t have anywhere else to be, anything else to take his mind off of it. This still happens sometimes, the highs are never as high, the lows are never as low, but it still freaks him out. His veins tickle under his skin. Mandy’s at work, Fiona would freak out and probably try to fly down to Florida, Lip’s being an asshole because he’s fucking some professor or whatever, Debs would just cry, and he can’t even text Carl for some dumb fucking joke because the kid can’t have a phone at his fancy new school. So he pulls on his running shoes, grabs his phone with his IDs and a couple bucks shoved into the case, and starts running. He doesn’t realize where he’s running to until he’s in front of the Milkovich apartment. Panting, he knocks on the door. The buzzing is less, now, now that he’s sweating buckets and trying to catch his breath. 

Mickey throws the door open, baggy sweatpants and a black wife beater stretched across his chest, bare feet, looks at Ian with an odd expression for a second, and then opens his mouth. “Jesus, Gallagher, you’re dripping sweat on the floor, what the fuck?”

Ian says nothing, he knows he probably looks a little weird, standing in the doorway in gym shorts and no shirt, eyes wide, sweat pouring down his face. He can’t look Mickey in the eye. The older boy steps back, then, gesturing Ian into the apartment, and walks to the kitchen without a word, leaving Ian to close the door behind him. He pours a glass of water and hands it to Ian, who chugs it. 

“You want a shower? I’m pretty sure we can scrounge up some clean clothes to fit your lanky ass.” Mickey offers when the glass is empty, and refills it.

Ian nods. He follows Mickey in the direction of the bathroom. The older man goes into a room with a handwritten “KEEP THE FUCK OUT” sign on the door, just like the one at their old house, and somehow this calms Ian a little. He shuffles through drawers, and then hands Ian a pair of worn gym shorts and a baggy sweatshirt that Ian is pretty sure will actually fit him and probably looks massive on Mickey. Then he hands Ian a spare towel. 

“I’ll be in the living room,” Mickey says, sort of awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Ian nods. “Don’t break the shower or whatever.” 

Ian turns the shower on as cold as he can stand it, steps out of his shoes, toes out of his socks, peels his shorts and boxer briefs off. The icy water cools his system, slows his heart rate. He picks a bottle up at random, it’s shampoo and he washes his hair and it smells kind of like the way Mickey smells when they’re sitting next to each other on the sofa watching Van Damme movies like time hasn’t passed. He washes his body next and his teeth are starting to chatter so he gets out of the shower, towels off, puts the clothes on. He’s grateful Mickey has given him a long sleeved shirt and wonders if it was intentional. But the clothes smell like Mickey, like antiseptic and ink and laundry detergent. 

When he gets back out of the bathroom, water dripping from his curls, Mickey’s pulling pizza bagels out of the oven and juts his chin out at Ian. 

“Hungry?”

Ian just shrugs, fingers tapping against his leg. 

“Watching  _ Taken,  _ you wanna sit for a bit?”

And yeah, he does. He wants this distraction, wants something to keep his mind off wherever it wants to go, and Mickey seems to know that. Know that Ian doesn’t want to talk about IT, whatever IT is, wants someone to just distract him and keep him grounded. 

So he sits. He sits on the sofa and takes a bite out of a pizza bagel before it’s cool enough to eat and Mickey turns the tv on and lays perpendicular to Ian with his bare feet pressed into Ian’s thigh and the weight is warm and welcome and grounding and Mickey is sketching and Liam Neeson is talking about a very specific set of skills and the buzzing around the corners of Ian’s brain is starting to mellow. 

 

***

 

Mickey is struggling on this assignment for his figure drawing class that the professor - “Just call me Jeff, guys” - had given them. Draw three people that mean something to you, in a way that exemplifies them as a person. No background, no props, just the person. The entire personality had to shine through the posing and the person. It’s mid-October and the assignment is due the second week of December so he’s got time but he can’t think of a third person. He’s got half a sketch of Iggy asleep on the sofa, mouth half open and head lolled back, arms crossed protectively over his chest. He started drawing Mandy, flipping him off with a bright smile on her face, sitting cross-legged on the floor. The two most important people in his life and he’s not sure what to do. Mandy had suggested he draw Ian and Mickey grunted out that he wasn’t going to draw her boyfriend. 

Mandy had laughed out loud. “Ian’s not my boyfriend, dickweed. He’s gay, anyway.” 

Mickey had choked and couldn’t think of a good enough comeback because of fucking course he was gay, of fucking course. He could barely handle this shit when he thought the kid was boning his sister, but knowing the redhead was available and potentially more than capable of...well, that’s not a safe thought to finish while his sister is laughing at him. 

Ian’s been over at the house nearly every night for the last month and Mickey is pretty sure he’s never jerked off this much in his entire fucking life. The kid comes over after EMT shifts or whatever and he’s got this uniform on at their kitchen table when Mickey comes home from class and it’s painful. The pale blue button down is stretched over his shoulders and he’s mouthing along with the studying he’s doing - Mickey looked over his shoulder once and there was a complicated looking musculature diagram on the page and Mickey shuddered - and more than once Mickey has thought about what it would be like to press open mouthed kisses to the vertebrae bumping under Ian’s skin. It’s fucking distracting and he’s never thought about anyone like this before. 

But the kid becomes a normal part of their lives, he becomes a part of Mickey’s life again in a way that he doesn’t know what to do with. Maybe he should draw the kid for his class. 

 

It’s Saturday afternoon and Mickey’s got the apartment to himself for once - Mandy and Iggy are both at work, and Mickey just spent the morning working on a drawing for one of his studio classes and finishing a sketch of an Alice in Wonderland-themed leg tattoo for a client the next week. And he was sitting on the sofa, in his most comfortable sweatpants and a tank top, working on the drawing of Iggy, shading with colored pencils, when there was a banging on the apartment door like half a Roman army. 

He throws the door open, ready to cuss whoever it is out and get back to work, but Ian’s standing there, shirtless, sweat dripping down his body, looking more than a little wild. He chokes for a second, eyes widening because he’s realizing this is the first time he’s seen Ian shirtless and my god is it delicious. But the kid looks frazzled. 

“Jesus, Gallagher, you’re dripping sweat on the floor, what the fuck?”

Ian says nothing, he’s not meeting Mickey’s eyes. Mickey takes in the redhead’s heaving body again, notes the angry looking scars criss crossing up his forearm and the wide, wild look in his eyes. He’s never seen this Ian and it’s throwing him a little. So Mickey steps back, then, gesturing Ian into the apartment, and walks to the kitchen without a word, leaving Ian to close the door behind him. He pours a glass of water and hands it to Ian, who chugs it. 

“You want a shower? I’m pretty sure we can scrounge up some clean clothes to fit your lanky ass.” Mickey offers when the glass is empty, and refills it.

Ian nods. Mickey walks in the direction of the bathroom, Ian following wordlessly. He shoulders open his bedroom door and shuffles through drawers, and then hands Ian a pair of his old gym shorts and a massively too baggy hoodie that Mickey wears when the weather drops below 55. Then he hands Ian a spare towel. The kid just takes them

“I’ll be in the living room,” Mickey says, feeling awkward, rubbing the back of his neck and presses his thumb against his nose. Ian nods. “Don’t break the shower or whatever.” 

Mickey turned back to the living room, trying to ignore the sound of the shower turning on, tried desperately not to think of the redhead standing under the spray, and tried not to worry about the crazed look in the younger boy’s eyes, the way his chest was heaving erratically in a way that seemed unrelated to the running he’d clearly been doing, the angry looking scars across the pale, freckled skin on the inside of his arm. For something to do, he pulled a box of pizza bagels out of the freezer and turned the oven on. The shower kept running and Mickey’s fingers were twitching, stressed and confused and a little more than a little on edge. The bagels came out of the oven just as Ian was coming out of the bathroom. 

He looked calmer, smaller somehow, in Mickey’s clothes. There was water dripping from his curls and he looked like he wanted to shrink into himself. He looks a little worried Mickey’s gonna ask what’s going on, his fingers tapping an unmeasured, rhythm-less beat on his leg.

So instead, Mickey lifts the tray of pizza bagels and asks, “Hungry?”

Ian just shrugs, fingers not slowing. Mickey recognizes the kind of caged look in the kid’s eyes, like he wants to sit and be distracted, but he doesn’t want to stay because if you stay people ask questions, so he doesn’t know what to do. 

“Watching  _ Taken,  _ you wanna sit for a bit?” Mickey asks, moving to the sofa with a couple of pot holders and the food he’s made. 

Ian sits down, then, curled into himself a little, hunched and awkward and eyes still just a little too wide. He takes a bite of a pizza bagel and Mickey knows it’s got to be too hot but the kid doesn’t even flinch. So Mickey sits down, leans himself back on the arm of the sofa, props his sketchbook up on his bent legs, bare feet pressed against Ian’s leg, and goes back to working on the drawing of Iggy. Liam Neeson is talking about his specific set of skills and Mickey can feel Ian’s muscles relax a little.  

When Liam Neeson has his daughter back, Ian speaks. “I have bipolar.”

He’s not looking at Mickey, he’s staring at the tv screen, but he’s not really seeing that, either. Mickey raises one eyebrow. 

“Is this, like...a new thing?”

Ian shakes his head. “No. Found out in high school. Uh, after…” he lifts his arms a little and yeah, Mickey knows what he’s talking about, so he doesn’t make the kid explain. “Anyway, I’m on meds, and usually it’s fine but sometimes I still get a little, idk. Off kilter. Like my brain is a neon sign that can’t shut off, you know?”

Mickey doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. He can kind of imagine it, he’s seen enough neon signs in his life, that buzzing, incessant and flashing and a little more than a little annoying. 

Ian shrugs again. “Just needed a distraction.”

“Well, I’m not doing anything for the rest of the day, so.” Mickey finds himself saying, he’s not sure why. 

“What are you drawing?” Ian asks, then, relaxing into the sofa, and Mickey realizes this is why. Because this Ian, with a small smile across his freckled face, looking at Mickey like he’s the most important person in the world, relaxed and soft and his for a minute, makes Mickey feel like he’s floating and drowning and filled to the brim of sunshine. 

So he answers. He’d answer all the kid’s stupid questions - yes, it did hurt, kind of, yes, I’m getting more tattoos, yes, Ian, that is a fucking tongue ring, pick your jaw up off the floor (and if Mickey hadn’t been so focused on his own blush then, he might’ve noticed the way Ian’s green eyes were suddenly blown out and dark and he had suddenly remembered he had to leave, but Mickey was not paying attention because his brain was suddenly filled with ideas about what Ian would taste like under his skin and he went to the Honey Pot that night and went home spent but unsatisfied) - even though he complains every time.

“Project for this figure drawing class.” He shows Ian the drawing, chewing a little on his thumb while he waits for a reaction. 

“That’s Iggy.” Ian says, smile growing. “You’re really good, Mick. This is really good.”

Mickey shrugs, but the praise feels like a warm blanket, better than a shot of whiskey, and he knows he’s blushing. “It’s dumb. The professor, he’s this weird hipster with a shitty hipster beard, he told us to draw 3 people who are important to us, and we couldn’t use any background or props, just the person. It’s has to be like, personal or whatever. Idk, the guy’s weird.”

Ian looks at him like he’s giving a fucking presidential address or some shit. “It’s really good. You really…” He laughs kinda. “You really captured the essence that is Iggy.” 

Mickey laughs at that, his brother had been kinda pissed and a little flattered the first time he’d seen the picture. “The other one is Mandy, it’s not quite done.” 

“Can I see?” Ian whispers. 

Mickey flips through the pages. It’s a loose outline, but he shows Ian anyway. The kid laughs out loud. 

“Oh my god, it’s perfect. It’s so her.” 

Mickey feels himself smile, taking in the way Ian’s eyes are a little crinkled at the corners, the easy smile on his face. His eyes are tracing the lines of Mickey’s drawing of Mandy, and his hair is almost dry now. 

“I need a third person to draw.” Mickey says out loud, and then chews on his thumb. 

Ian just looks up. 

“Do you…” He looks down. “Do you mind?”

And the kid lights up. His eyes are bright, his smile is brighter, Mickey is pretty sure his fucking skin is glowing. 

“Alright, calm down Carrot Top.” Mickey smirks, mostly to hide his smile. “It’s just a fucking picture.” 

“Do you need me to…” Ian looks around, tucking his fingers into the sleeves of his hoodie. 

“Nah, I have to think about how to do it for a little while.” Mickey waves his hand. 

How, exactly. How do you do justice to someone with so much fucking light in their body, with pain flickering behind their eyes when they think no one is listening. He knows Ian pretty well, he thinks, when he tucks his feet back under the redhead’s strong legs and props his sketchbook back up on his legs to finish the drawing of Iggy. Ian picks another movie, and he sorta sinks into the sofa. Mickey knows he calls his family once a week, knows he’s fiercely independent, smart and funny and sarcastic. Knows he doesn’t drink caffeine, knows he won’t drink alcohol even though Iggy and Mandy offer it every time he’s here. Knows he likes sour cream and onion pringles over the BBQ ones, knows how he takes his pizza, his usual Chinese food order. He knows Ian’s always exhausted when he comes to the apartment after an EMT shift, he buys pasta in bulk when the kid has a race coming up. But how do you describe someone you’re pretty sure you’ve been in love with since you were in second grade?

 

***

 

Thanksgiving is approaching. Mickey shows Ian his finished drawing of Mandy, her laugh evident in spite of the angry hand gesture, and Ian fills with pride because Mickey showed him  _ first,  _ before anyone, before even Mandy. He thinks he might have this dark haired boy figured out a little. The way Mickey presses some part of his body against Ian’s, when they’re on the sofa, while they’re eating, when they go to the store. Ian would never say anything about it, he’s pretty sure the grouchy artist is touch starved, and Ian feels flushed with the trust Mickey’s putting into him. He knows he’s comfortable with closeness, with physical contact - you had to be, growing up in the Gallagher house. He shared a room with at least 2 brothers most his life, and between Fiona and Vee alone, he’s surprised he’s never cracked a rib from the force of their hugs. So if Mickey wants to prop his feet up on Ian’s lap while he’s drawing, always drawing, Ian’ll let him, and he sort of mindlessly rubs Mickey’s ankles while he studies his notes, just like he used to for Fi when she would come home late from work and he was too manic to sleep. 

They sit maybe a little-too-close on the sofa when they watch movies together, sometimes with Mandy, sometimes Iggy’s there, too, sometimes it’s just the two of them in the quiet of the apartment, and if Mickey fell asleep on Ian’s chest halfway through Die Hard one Sunday night after a week of non-stop class and a two-day, 6-hour-at-a-time session with this burly fuckin’ motorcyclist who wanted this ridiculously detailed back piece, well, Ian’s not going to say anything. He’ll glare at Mandy when she comes home and takes a picture of her sleeping brother, ignoring her smile at the way her brother is curled into Ian’s chest and gripping his shirt loosely. Mickey had preened, like a puffed up peacock, when Ian had complimented the tattoo he’d done, and gently massaged his wrist and fingers. It took all of Ian’s self control not to press kisses into Mickey’s warm, calloused hands. When he catches the glint of something metal in Mickey's mouth, the older boy rolls his eyes, tells him, yes, dumbass, ever seen a fucking tongue ring, and sticks his tongue out flatly. Ian's body reacts more he has a chance to and he rushes back to his dorm, stammering some excuse, and jacks off to the idea of cold metal against his burning flash and he can't look Mickey in the eye for nearly a week. So they spend more time together and it's torture but my god it's so fucking sweet.

He can’t afford a plane ticket home for Thanksgiving, they had talked about it before he left, but it doesn’t mean it sucks any less. So Mandy invites him to stay at their place for the week-long break and immediately, he agrees. He’s exhausted, and the dorm will be quiet and empty and a little creepy. So, he’ll share a bed with Mandy for a week and spend time with the Milkoviches and catch up on sleep and homework and eat way too much junk food. 

Mickey comes home the first Sunday with watery eyes and a slight limp and a new tattoo on his calf. It’s a songbird of some kind, flying out of a broken cage, and it’s beautiful, and Ian tells Mickey it’s beautiful and laughs a little when the older boy winces when the newly inked flesh brushes against the sofa. 

 

Thursday is when the trouble starts. Ian thinks of a book he read once in school, where the character had said, “I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” They’re all sitting in the Milkovich living room. Iggy’s in a lazy boy and Mandy is half-asleep and definitely stoned against one arm of the sofa. Ian’s in the middle, with Mickey’s body pressed against his - shoulder, arm, leg - and he felt like he was on fire. There’s a pile of wings and pizza bagels on the coffee table in front of them because none of them know how to cook a turkey, but Ian had bought a pumpkin pie and a can of Ready Whip, so it kinda felt like Thanksgiving. They were watching some dumb comedy that no one was really paying attention to. Mickey was on his fourth or fifth beer and the sky is sort of starting to get darker. 

Iggy looks up suddenly, eyes red and hooded. “Hey, Red.” 

Ian, sober, so, so sober, looks at him. “Yeah?”

“What did Terry do when he found out we were gone?”

He can feel Mickey tense next to him and Mandy kind of laughs. He rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, according to Kevin, he trashed the Alibi and then beat up a cop? He got sent to jail for like, a  _ while _ and even got a lifetime ban from the Alibi because he destroyed so much of the booze and the bar.” 

Iggy starts laughing and takes another hit off his joint. “Dumbass.” 

Mickey’s silent and tense. 

Mandy speaks around a mouthful of pizza bagel and asks what the old fucker’s doing these days. 

“Uh…” Ian feels himself blinking a little too slowly. The answer comes out in a mumble. “He died a couple years ago.” 

Suddenly, next to him, Mickey is standing up, his half-empty beer bottle shattering at his feet and splashing Ian’s jeans with beer. Iggy drops his joint on the floor and Mandy’s jaw drops open as she sits up and somewhere in the back of his mind, Ian registers that as gross because her mouth is full of half-chewed pizza bagel. Then Iggy is laughing and then Mandy is laughing and Mickey is frozen next to him, beer on the legs of his sweatpants, face twisted in some kind of sick grimace. 

Suddenly, the middle Milkovich bolts to his room, door slamming so hard the whole apartment shakes. Ian freezes. Iggy’s phone buzzes. 

“Dramatic fucker,” Mandy mutters, turning the volume up on the tv and shoving another pizza bagel in her mouth. 

Iggy looks at his phone and then goes to the door. “Going to go get laid,” He says, chugging half a glass of water and straightening his collar. 

“Yeah, just gonna go get laid.” Mandy smirks, stretching out and pushing Ian towards the other end of the sofa. She tugs a blanket over her body. “Just admit she’s your girlfriend, Ig.” Her voice is sleepy. 

Iggy leaves, Mandy’s breathing evens out, and Ian’s socks are soaking up the beer on the floor. Then he moves. He creeps to the door with the bold “KEEP THE FUCK OUT” sign and tries the handle. It’s not locked, so he pushes it open. It sticks a little bit, fucking Florida humidity. Ian’s breath gets caught in his throat when he sees Mickey, he’s curled in a ball on his side in the middle of his bed. 

“Hey, Mick?” He keeps his voice soft, even. No answer. “I’m coming in.” Steps in, closes the door behind him. “Is it okay if I sit with you?” Still, no answer. “If you don’t say no now, I’m gonna sit the fuck down.” Nothing. Ian sits down. Mickey’s shaking. 

Ian doesn’t know what else to fucking do, so he tugs the blanket up from the crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. He yanks his beer-soaked jeans and socks off, and then climbs into the bed in his boxers, hopes Mickey won’t get pissed or something, and covers them both with the blanket. He curls his warm body around Mickey’s as the dark haired boy shakes with silent sobs and just holds him. After he’s not even sure how long, he’s been tracing circles mindlessly on the back of Mickey’s hand above his stomach and the sky outside Mickey’s window is dark, Mickey speaks. 

“You know why we left?” He asks, voice cracking and raw. 

Ian hums out a no. “We all wondered. Especially since it happened so quickly after… after Mandy got sick. But no one had any idea.” 

Mickey snorts out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. Came home from Juvie the third time, told my dad I didn’t want to beat up some cokehead for him. He beat me so badly, I passed out. Got a rather impressive beer bottle gash for that one,” He lifts his sleeveless shirt and passes his fingers over a jagged line under the violets on his ribcage. Ian traces the line with gentle fingers, traces the tattoo while Mickey keeps talking, voice shaky. “Only time he beat me worse is when he found my sketchbook with a bunch of pictures of…” he pauses. “Of guys. Think he kinda figured I might be gay and the best way to handle it was to beat it out me. Told me if he found anything like that again, he’d find someone to fuck the gay outta me.” Mickey spits it out, and Ian feels himself choking a little. “Fucker. Anyway, came home, got the shit beat out of me, and then went to go beat the shit out of some fucker who owed Terry money. You saw us after, it wasn’t pretty.” Ian nods, remembering Mickey’s bloody face and the way he’d been clutching his side. “So that night, I hear all this noise coming from Mandy’s room, and. Well. Uh, Iggy and I, we didn’t get there in time, by the time we got to Mandy’s room, he was already passed out on the floor next to her bed. Iggy wanted to kill him right then and there, but Mandy was crying and half-naked and I decided we’d have to leave. We brought her to your place, because we had no idea what Terry was going to do when he got home again, and he’d never think to look for any of us at fucking Frank’s house. And then the next day, we left. Iggy got some guy to forge custody papers and an ID for him and we’ve basically been here since.” He sighs, and Ian’s still tracing the flowers on his ribcage, the ribbon declaring worthiness of love. “Mandy didn’t speak for two weeks.” Then he turns to Ian. “I shouldn’t’ve stopped Iggy from killing him when we had the chance. Shoulda fuckin’ killed him while we had the fuckin’ chance.”

Ian breathed out, low and slow, through his nose. “Then you’d be in jail and Mandy would’ve still been there, Mick.”

“Yeah.” Mickey nods. “Yeah.” 

Ian just wraps his arms back around the dark haired artist curled against his chest, rubs gently at his back, and they fall asleep like that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: thececimonster
> 
> I love all of you! xoxo!


	4. Beautiful, So Fucking Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm trash at summaries. Mickey doesn't think he deserves this. Ian tells him he's an idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some descriptions of violence, suicide, and self-harm in this chapter. 
> 
> Mickey is probably touch-starved. Give my boy a hug, please and thank ya kindly. 
> 
> It gets a little sexy.

The morning after Thanksgiving, Mickey woke up with someone in his bed. He blinked, slowly. His head was laying on a warm chest, one arm was wrapped lazily around his torso, and he was clinging to a shirt. Their legs were tangled in a jumbled mess. Red hair and freckles and long fingers gently playing at the skin between his shirt and his sweatpants and. Ian. Ian was in his bed, he was half asleep on Ian’s chest with the fucker’s long fingers making goosebumps erupt all over his body. And if he wasn’t mistaken, Ian’s morning wood was pressed against his thigh. Fuck. 

Ian spoke, eyes still shut. “Mick I swear to god if you don’t stop fidgeting, I am going to pin you down to this bed so I can get some fucking sleep.” 

Mickey gulped and stilled and tried to pretend the idea of Ian pinning him to the bed was not nearly as appealing as it was. Kind of difficult when his very interested morning wood was pressing into Ian’s hipbone. Ian opened one eye and raised one eyebrow, looking down at Mickey’s flushed face. 

“Mick.” His voice was low, rough with sleep, and it sent a jolt straight down Mickey’s spine. His fingers tightened around Mickey’s hip, grip becoming bruising. 

“Ian, I…” 

The redhead shoved himself upright against the cheap headboard, blanket pooling around his waist. “Let me guess. You can’t do this. You don’t do this. This will ruin everything?” His green eyes were bright and flashing and Mickey couldn’t look at him. 

He clears his throat but he still chokes around the words. “I don’t date, Ian. I’m not good at that kind of stuff. Holding hands, kissing, dates, whatever.” He tries to breathe. He’s soft, now, and he feels a little sick. “You’re…” He reaches careful fingers out and traces the line of Ian’s jaw. “You’re so fucking beautiful, so good, and you deserve the fucking world.” Mickey whispers. “I’m… I’m just some fucking Southside thug with a bad attitude and a tattoo gun. You don’t want this, Ian.”

Ian laughs. He laughs and for a minute, Mickey’s mad. His fist clenches and he wants to punch the laugh off Gallagher’s beautiful, stupid face. Then the redhead speaks, wiping a hand down his face. “You’re so fucking stupid, Mick.” He shakes his head. “You’re not just some thug with a tattoo gun. You’ve always been so fucking much more than that. Fuck, man, I’ve had a crush on you since like, kindergarten, probably. Definitely since the first time you punched some fucker’s lights out for me and then taught me how to hit back. You’re loyal, and strong, and smart, and talented. And you’re a thug with a bad attitude and tattoo gun. And you deserve the world.” His voice is soft and Mickey feels like maybe his heart is breaking, or maybe like it’s coming together, like he’s been punched in the chest so hard all the pieces are settling and the rubble is clearing. Ian leans forward, clutching Mickey’s face in his hands. “Terry was wrong. They were all wrong, Mick. And I’m so fucking proud of you.” 

Mickey clings to Ian’s wrists like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded. Then Mandy shouts from in the kitchen. 

“Wake up you assholes! Stop fucking or whatever, I want pancakes!”

Ian rolls his eyes to the ceiling, but then he plants a kiss on the top of Mickey’s head and Mickey swears he can feel the warmth all the way down to his fucking TOES. 

“If we were fucking, you’d be able to hear it, Mandy.” Ian calls back. “Trust me.”

Then he winks back at Mickey, yanks his jeans back on, dried beer stained at the bottoms, and walks out of the room. 

Mickey wipes his hand down his face and chews on his thumb for a second and FUCKING HELL. But he pulls on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt and grabs another one for Ian and walks to the kitchen. The redhead is instructing Mandy on the ingredients they need and she’s checking cabinets and Mickey tosses him the clean shirt. Right there in the middle of the fucking kitchen, with his sister practically arms distance away, Ian strips his dirty shirt off, tossing it behind him in the direction of the sofa. Mickey feels his jaw drop, and Ian gives him the cockiest fucking smirk and flexes a little and Mickey is sure he’s drooling but his mouth is also so fucking dry. Ian just leans back, clean shirt in one hand, arms flexing as he holds himself up on the counter, and Mickey can’t fucking breathe oh my god, he thinks that maybe this laughing Ian standing shirtless in his kitchen is his favorite Ian. Mickey doesn’t blink again until Mandy turns around and yells at Ian for not wearing clothes and then the idiot is wearing his t-shirt. 

They make pancakes and Iggy comes back with a dark skinned girl with a septum piercing and bright blue braids and a warm smile and they all sit in the living room and Ian tries to stop Mickey from absolutely drowning his pancakes in syrup. But Iggy’s girlfriend, he’s finally admitting she’s his girlfriend, is in the big chair and Iggy’s on the floor leaning against her legs and Ian is on one side of Mickey on the sofa, their bodies pressed together, shoulder, arms, hips, legs, and Mandy’s stretched out on the other side with her feet across both their laps and their plates on her legs and she’s talking about dying her hair pink again and it’s warm and it’s family and Mickey thinks that maybe Ian was right. That Terry was wrong, that they were all wrong, that he’s worthy of love, too. 

 

***

 

Somewhere around the time Mickey curls up next to Ian, clinging gently to Ian’s borrowed shirt, after Mandy loses the rock paper scissors match to do the dishes, Ian realizes just how deep this is. He realizes how small, how terrified this Mickey is. Thinks of Mickey in that shitty, drafty house on the Southside, passed out on the floor with blood pooling beneath him because he had the audacity to even consider being attracted to a boy, had the gall to try to stand up to Terry. Thinks of the Mickey that was quiet, calculating - everyone said he was impulsive and reckless, and reckless, yeah, no one would ever say Mickey wasn’t reckless, but he was never impulsive. He was smart and decisive and seemed to know, intuitively, what the best decision was in any given situation. Where Ian had learned the careful art of talking his way out of any fucking trouble, Mickey learned at the school of hard knocks where you hit first, asked questions later, if ever, but he was smart about it. Had learned when to lean against the railing and let Ian talk their way out of trespassing on the baseball field on Mandy’s 11th birthday, when to punch the fucker who tried to grab at Ian’s little sister while they were walking down the street and then just run. Ian thinks about the Mickey who made a midnight split second decision to run, to get away fast and furious and protect his sister whatever the cost. Thinks about the boy who hadn’t let himself feel about it until he was safe in the crux of Ian’s embrace, the boy so riddled with self-hatred for not stopping it sooner, not leaving better, not doing more, for being born a Milkovich, that he didn’t think he deserved the love and care he was so careful to show the ones he cared about. 

And so Ian does the only thing he knows how to do. He lets Mickey cling to him, says nothing, draws no attention to it. He plays idly with the short hairs at the base of Mickey’s neck and watches most of this dumb hot tub comedy with Iggy and his girlfriend and Mandy. They spend the rest of the weekend in this way. Ian goes for a run late in the afternoon, it’s finally cooled down enough for the entire world not to feel like a swamp. He showers and calls Fiona to check in and when he gets back to the living room, Mandy’s at the coffee table with a highlighted text book in front of her and one head in her hands, Iggy and the blue-haired girl are gone, and Mickey’s stretched out on the sofa working on the drawing of Mandy. Ian picks up one of his textbooks from the pile next to his bag, walks over to the sofa, and stands for a moment. Mickey just raises one eyebrow, lifts his feet slightly, and nods to Ian. Ian sits, and Mickey’s feet are in his lap, pressing into his thigh. There’s some cop show reruns on the TV but it’s mostly quiet except for the scratching of Mickey’s pencils, Mandy’s occasional sighs of irritation, and the flipping of Ian’s notebook pages as he reads through his notes. He falls asleep in Mickey’s bed again, and Mandy says nothing about it.

They wake up late and then Mickey has work Saturday afternoon, and Ian works out, going to the gym for the first time in too many days, and then goes for a long run that somehow ends at Mickey’s shop. He’s dripping sweat and breathing heavy and Mickey’s pushing through the door, cigarette in his lip and yelling behind him. 

“Yeah, just takin’ a smoke break before my 3:00, keep your pants on.” He says with a grimace that Ian recognizes as mostly fake and searching his pockets for his lighter. Then he looks up and sees Ian. 

Ian watches Mickey’s brow furrow in confusion and then raise in surprise and then relax into his easy expression that Ian recognizes as happy, familiar,  _ it’s good to see you, Gallagher.  _

“You out for a run?” He asks, finding the lighter and lighting the cigarette. 

Ian just raises an eyebrow. “What did we say about stupid questions, again?” He’s smirking, and fuck no one should look that hot lighting a fucking cigarette, but Mickey’s wearing another shirt with the sleeves cut off and Ian can’t help but watch his fingers flex around the smoke. 

Mickey deadpans, blowing out smoke, careful not to blow it at Ian. “Oh very fucking funny, Gallagher. Real fuckin’ comedian.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ian pulls the bottom of his shirt up to wipe the sweat of his face and he can just hear the catch in Mickey’s breathing and yeah, running this way was a great idea. He keeps his face even, innocent. “Been real fuckin’ lazy this week, coach is gonna murder me probably. Gotta stay in shape.”

“Oh yeah, you got real tubby there, tough guy.” Mickey reaches out and backhands Ian’s stomach just hard enough to give it a little sting and Ian flexes underneath it. 

“You been lookin’ Mick?” His voice is low, quiet and just this side of sultry and he can see the bob of Mickey’s Adam’s apple as he inhales for something to do. 

“Shut the fuck up.” Mickey’s blushing a little and Ian smirks. 

“Nothing wrong with looking, as long as you like what you see.” Ian leans against the pillar behind him, preening. 

The door to the next shop over, a fine arts store advertising classes on a calendar in the window, swings open. A blonde haired girl with half her head shaved and a row of shining jewelry in her ear steps out, lighting her own cigarette. She turns, sees Ian and Mickey. 

“Mickey Milkovich, as I live and breathe!”

“Rachel, I saw you like 3 days ago, shut the fuck up.” Mickey curses around his cigarette. 

“But you didn’t have this tall drink of water with you then,” blonde chick - Rachel, apparently - coos, winking at Ian. 

Mickey screws his face up. “For fuck’s sake, Rachel. You’re gay. And I’ve met your girlfriend, so stop with the creepy fake hitting on the kid.” He thumbs the side of his nose.

Ian watches, amusement playing across his face. Then he leans forward, hand extended. “I’m Ian, an old friend of Mickey’s.”

She raises her white-blonde eyebrows. “Didn’t know Mickey had any friends.” She shook Ian’s hand. “He’s so fuckin’ grouchy all the time.”

“Oh I know. Been that way for ages. Bit of a long story. How do you know each other?” He can see Mickey out of the corner of his eyes, bristling at the amount of socializing he’s being asked to sit through, trying to decide if he should be offended by the accusation of being grouchy. 

“Oh, he used to work at my store, until Peter stole him out from under me.” Rachel looks bored and not all that upset. 

“Peter?” The name sounds familiar to Ian, but he’s not sure why. 

Mickey speaks up. “Owner of the tattoo shop.” he supplies. Then he looks at Rachel. “And so much better than your dumb ass. He doesn’t try to talk to me or bum cigarettes off me.” If they were younger, different people, Mickey would be sticking his tongue out right now, Ian’s sure of it. 

Rachel waves at nothing. “You miss me.”

“I miss your girlfriend bringing me pizza.” Mickey retorts. Someone in the shop behind him calls his name. “As delightful as this has been, I have work to do.” He stubs out his cigarette, Rachel does the same. “I’ll see you at home, Firecrotch.” He says it like a statement but it’s a question, too. 

Ian preens, internally. “Not my name, Mick. I’ll be there.” Turns to the blonde girl looking between him and Mickey like it’s the most amusing thing she’s ever seen. “Nice to meet you, Rachel.” And without a backward glance, he’s off, running back in the direction of Mickey’s apartment. 

A couple hours later, after he’s showered and pouring over his anatomy textbook, Ian’s stomach growls. Mandy and Mickey are both working through dinner and Iggy and his girlfriend are doing whatever it is they do, so Ian makes himself a sandwich and an idea strikes. He calls the pizza place saved in his phone. 

A little less than an hour later, his phone buzzes. A picture of a pepperoni pizza. “How’d you know I was starving?” The accompanying text reads. 

“Think I know you pretty well, Mick.” He responds. 

“Yeah. Yeah, guess you do.” 

He takes his meds around the time Mandy’s tripping through the door, grumbling about espresso and slams into the bathroom. Ian curls under Mickey’s blankets and then wakes up a couple hours later to the feeling of Mickey crawling in after him, pressing his back to Ian’s chest without a sound, and then Ian’s asleep again. 

 

***

Mickey would be lying if he said he didn’t sleep like shit the first night Ian goes back to his dorm after Thanksgiving break. He was grouchy all morning, nearly got into a fist fight for no fucking reason trying to get a fucking coffee, and nearly fell asleep on top of his drawing in class. It’s late, nearly midnight, when he’s sitting at the kitchen table doing homework with Mandy across from him and Iggy at the sofa, and there’s an unnaturally soft knock at the door, his heart jumps to his throat. He opens the door, and Ian’s standing there in his EMT uniform with a streak of blood across one sleeve, eyes wide, hands shaking. The part of him that’s glad to see Ian jumps, but the part of him that recognizes the horror in the taller boy’s expression sends his stomach plummeting to his feet. 

He says nothing, just guides Ian into the apartment, closes the door, and ignores both of his siblings. They’re in the bathroom now, and Mickey starts unbuttoning Ian’s shirt. He’s going slowly, movements easy and gentle, like you would approach a spooked animal. Ian’s just staring at him, chewing on his lower lip, eyes big and wide and terrified. He unbuckles the belt, unbuttons and unzips Ian’s pants, gets his shirt and undershirt off, guides Ian to sit on the lid of the toilet. He unties the younger boy’s boots, peels them off with his socks, guides him back up, pushes his pants down. He turns the water on, waits for it to get hot. Ian’s standing in front of him in just his boxers and part of Mickey wants to jump in the shower with him but the kid looks so fucking shell shocked, so he just bites at the inside of his cheek, instructs Ian to take his own boxers off, and then steps towards the door, carefully maintaining eye contact with Ian so he doesn’t look down. 

“I’m gonna go get you some water. Take a shower, I’ll be right in my room when you get done.” He says, voice soft. 

Ian nods, stepping into the shower. Mickey walks back to the living room, taking Ian’s bloody shirt with him after tossing the other clothes into his room. He closes his textbooks and leaving them on the kitchen table, and then starts rinsing the blood from the shirt. It feels vaguely like nostalgia, standing at the leaky kitchen sink, pouring hydrogen peroxide on the shirt, rinsing the blood out, his siblings behind him and his heart heavy. One good thing about growing up in Terry Milkovich’s house - you got good at getting rid of blood stains. 

“He good?” Iggy finally asks, not looking away from the tv. 

“Not sure, he’s taking a shower.” Mickey answers, draping the cleaned shirt over a cabinet door and filling a glass with water. 

Mandy smirks. “What, and you’re not joining him?”

Mickey pinches the bridge of his nose. “Not the time, Mandy. Shut the fuck up.” 

Iggy’s phone buzzes and he looks at it, shutting off the TV. “I’m going to Jade’s. Hope the kid’s okay.” 

With a heavy breath, Mickey realizes he’s kinda thankful for that. Mandy’s looking at him curiously. 

“I’m…” she picks up her phone and texts someone. A message flashes through after a second. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, Mick. Tell Ian I love him.”

Suddenly the apartment is empty, but for the sound of the shower and Mandy shutting the door behind her. Mickey takes the glass of the water back to his room, changes into comfortable sweats, and pulls out a pair of Ian’s sweatpants that he left there over Thanksgiving. Moments later, the redhead is walking into his room, a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping from his hair to his shoulders and down his chest. Mickey swallows. He presses the pants into Ian’s hand and then mutters something about needing to piss. He gets back, the glass is half empty, and Ian’s got the blankets pulled up around his head. 

So, Mickey crawls in behind him, and wraps his arms around the narrower chest, tugging Ian close to him, tracing mindless circles on Ian’s stomach. The heat was warm and gentle and welcome, Ian’s bare back against his bare chest, Ian’s feet tangling between his, the redhead’s breathing slowing and easing a little. 

“She killed herself.” Ian says, finally, not moving except to clutch Mickey’s hand. 

Mickey hums in question. 

“We had a call, and this… this girl, she had killed herself in her dorm room. There was so much blood, we were too late.” Ian’s voice is quiet, shaking. 

“Jesus, Ian…” Mickey breathes it out. 

He breathes, heavy and shaking and pained sounding. “She looked just like Monica. Just like when we found Monica.” 

Ian’s mom. Mickey had picked up on enough to realize that the Gallagher matriarch, if you could call her that, had died, but this was the first time Ian was talking about the how or the why. Mickey had kinda assumed she’d OD’d. 

“You…” He started. He wasn’t sure how to finish the question. 

“Halfway through my senior year. Came home after picking Liam, Debs, and Carl up from school. Walked into the kitchen and she was just laying in her blood. Debbie started screaming, just this long, continuous scream. Sounded like a fucking banshee, I can still hear it sometimes. Liam, he. He stopped talking again, for like a week. Carl just looked like someone had kicked him in the teeth. Never seen the kid look so fucking defeated. That’s kinda when he decided to go to military school. There was so much blood. So much fucking blood.” He was shaking in Mickey’s arms now. 

Gently as he could, Mickey rolled Ian over so that the redhead was facing him. He tucked Ian’s head against his chest, felt the tears against his skin. He wrapped his arms around Ian’s freckled torso, pressed a kiss to the damp bright red hair. Mickey may not be good at words, but this, he could do. He could hold Ian for as long as Ian needed. After a while, they fell asleep. 

 

The next morning, Mickey wakes up to an unfamiliar alarm and then Ian’s arm crossing over his body and the alarm shutting off. He mumbles, pressing back into the warm body and starting to stretch. 

“Go back to sleep, Mick.” Ian whispers, and then Mickey feels the press of lips against his temple and then sleep. 

His alarm goes off a few hours later and he grumbles until he can shut it off. He presses his face against the pillow, breathing in Ian, Ian, Ian. Then he pushes himself out of the bed, rubbing his eyes, and stumbles into the bathroom to piss. After he’s peed, he trips, half blind, towards the kitchen, smelling something delicious. Ian’s there, sweatpants low on his hips, he looks like he showered, and he probably did. Probably went for a run, came back, showered, and now he’s making….pancakes? Is that pancakes? The redhead has headphones in, his phone on the counter next to him, and he was humming along to the music that was probably playing, off key. His shoulders were less tense, and he was swaying a little bit. 

This Ian, the light glancing off his bare shoulders, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he poured batter onto the hot pan and bobbing his head in time to the music, this Ian was Mickey’s favorite Ian for sure. The early morning light sifted through the crooked blinds, and there was coffee brewing - Mickey drank coffee, Ian didn’t, he made it for Mickey - and he looked lighter than he had in well over a week. 

Mickey wanted to do a million things at once. He wanted to walk up behind Ian, press kisses to the knots of his spine, wrap his arms around the taller boy’s torso. He wanted to drag Ian away from the hot pan and the breakfast and the coffee, drag him back to the bed and kiss him breathless, press open-mouthed kisses to the skin just above his sweatpants until Ian was shaking and pleading. He wanted to. He wanted to. 

So he slid into the chair at the table that faced Ian, pulled his sketch pad out from under the pile of textbooks and the nearest pencil - it was shitty and Mandy’s but it would do, and started to draw. He looked and drew and looked and looked and drew. Drew Ian’s broad shoulders, his curling hair, his narrow hips, the dimples in his back just above his sweatpants, his long legs. Drew until the page was covered with pencil lines and his hand was cramped and Ian was turning around with a plate piled high with pancakes and a small smile. 

“Mickey!” Ian cried out, nearly dropping the plate. 

Mickey smiled, slow and bright, and stood up, dropping the pencil down on the sketchpad. He took the plate from Ian, placed in on the counter, and yanked the headphones out of his ears. Slowly, he wrapped the headphones around the phone, putting it back on the counter next to the plate of pancakes. 

Then he put his hands on Ian’s hips. Ian’s breath caught. Mickey backed them up until Ian was pressed against the counter, fingers gripping Mickey’s forearms, Mickey’s hips pressed into his, chest to chest, breath heaving.. 

“You’re beautiful.” Mickey breathed into the non-existent space between them. 

He could feel Ian growing hard under his baggy sweatpants. Could feel himself pressed into Ian’s thigh. One of Ian’s hands moved to wrap around Mickey’s waist, tugging him impossibly closer. The other came up, traced the line of Mickey’s cheekbone, moving to cup the back of Mickey’s head. His hand fucking covered most of Mickey’s skull and he felt his breath catch at the way his entire body was surrounded, wrapped up in  _ Ian Ian Ian  _ and it was delicious. 

“Can I kiss you, Mick?” Ian whispered, face mere centimeters from Mickey’s. 

In response, Mickey did what he had wanted to do since he was 15 years old, what he had never done with anyone before. He reached up, grip on Ian’s hips bruising tight, and kissed him. 

 

***

Kissing Mickey was. Well, Ian wasn’t sure he had the right words for it. It was fast and brutal and passionate and smooth and gentle and  _ eyes closed head first can’t lose  _ and Mickey tasted like morning breath and cigarette smoke and metal and Ian was right, kissing someone with a tongue ring was holy shit hot holy fucking hell what was he doing with his tongue? Every nerve ending on Ian’s body was electrified, on fire. He tugged on the short strands of Mickey’s hair and the older boy groaned into his mouth and the sound went straight to Ian’s dick, pressed against Mickey’s hip through their sweatpants. Mickey’s nails were digging into Ian’s hips and Ian wanted to press Mickey into the counter and fuck him until he couldn’t walk and never wanted to stop kissing him and he was light headed and dizzy and then Mickey pulled back. Slowly, panting for breath, Mickey pulled back, knocking their foreheads together and breathing heavy. 

“Well fuck.” Mickey said just under his breath. 

“If you insist,” Ian intoned with a smirk. 

Mickey looked up at that, eyes wide and lust-blown. “You want…” 

Ian pulled the dark haired artist into another kiss, slower, sweeter, slightly more chaste. “Only if you want, too, Mick.” 

Mickey licked his lips. “Fucking hell, Gallagher. You’re gonna be the death of me.” 

He grabbed Ian by the wrist, tugging him towards the bedroom, ignoring Ian’s protests about pancakes and coffee with a growled “Shut the fuck up, Ian.” and the way he growled the name made Ian’s knees a little more wobbly than he wanted them to be, so he followed. Mickey pressed Ian into the mattress, straddling his hips and grinding slow. Ian made to sit up, and Mickey pushed him back down. 

“You...I…” Mickey closed his eyes and chewed his thumb for a second, never stopping the slow grind. “I don’t just want you to fuck me, Ian.” His voice was barely a whisper, a slight tremble. Ian gripped Mickey’s hip, steady and hard and warm and Mickey’s voice got louder, stronger, but still quiet and gentle and so fucking close. “I want to take you out to dinner at some shitty restaurant neither of us can afford and hold your hand in public and when people ask who I am, I want you to tell them I’m yours. I don’t know if I’m gonna be any good at it, but I really fucking want that.” His eyes were still closed and his face was flushed and he was still grinding slowly against Ian and Ian could barely think for it but god  _ damn.  _

“Mick.” He whispered. “Mick, look at me.” Mickey’s eyes opened and they were so blue it took Ian’s breath away. “You’re mine. You’re beautiful, so fucking beautiful, so fucking good, and so fucking mine. I want to bring you coffee when you’re grouchy and harrass you into wearing a nice shirt out to dinner and hold your hand even when you complain about it, and when people ask me, who the heck is that guy, I’m gonna smile so big and tell them, he’s mine, isn’t that wonderful? He’s mine and he’s wonderful.” 

Mickey looks a little choked up and it’s weird but Ian thinks he gets it but if he keeps going, he knows Mickey’s gonna bolt for the fucking door, so he moves instead. 

He presses his hips up, hard, and then grabs Mickey and flips them, so Mickey’s legs are wrapped around his waist and he’s pressing into the dark haired boy from above, kissing a line down his neck. He’s just as sweet as Ian thought he’d be, just as warm and pliant and amazing.

“You want that, Mick?” Ian practically purrs into the space between Mickey’s neck and his collarbone. “You want to be mine? Wanna be good for me?”

And Mickey keens, pressing up into Ian, desperate for more friction, gripping at Ian’s hair, at his back, wherever he can touch. 

 

***

 

Ian’s pressing kisses into Mickey’s neck and Mickey is 100% sure he’s going to die right here on this bed. Then Ian asks him if Mickey wants to be good for him and one part of Mickey is sure he should hate that but my  _ god _ Ian could ask him to do anything in that voice that’s so rough and low and pulling Mickey apart at the fucking seams and somehow still telling him he’s good and perfect and beautiful, and Mickey would just do it. His fingers are scratching at Ian’s back, tugging at Ian’s fire-bright hair, hips pressing up, desperate for friction. 

Ian seems to understand this as a positive response, because he’s kissing lower and lower and Mickey swears he’s about to lose his fucking mind and then the redhead yanks his sweats off in one smooth motion and his mouth is on Mickey’s cock and holy fucking SHIT. Ian’s mouth is hot and wet and he sucks Mickey’s dick like he was fucking born to do it and Mickey’s hand is still in his hair and the other one is grabbing at the sheets under him and if Ian keeps this up it’s all gonna end pretty quickly, so Mickey tugs at the back of the fucker’s head and garbles out something that sounds like it might be “Ian.”

When Ian’s back, face above Mickey’s, his smile is cocky and bright and  _ fuck yeah,  _ this is fucking happening. Ian’s tugging his sweatpants down and Mickey’s fishing in the drawer next to his bed for lube and they’re kissing and it’s messy and teeth and tongues and the metal in Mickey’s mouth clacks against Ian’s teeth and Ian gasps, low and growling, and sits up, taking the lube from Mickey’s slack hand. 

“Fucking  _ christ,  _ Mick, you’re so fucking  _ hot. _ ” Ian mutters out, hands tracing down Mickey’s body, flittering over tattoos, fingers circling Mickey’s nipples in a movement that pulls a moan from Mickey’s throat as he arcs into the feeling. 

Then Ian’s coating one finger in lube and spreading Mickey’s legs, bending one up, eyes never leaving Mickey’s. As he presses the long, freckled finger inside of Mickey, he kisses him, again, open mouthed and sinful and delightful and Mickey knows he’s a mess of groaning and thrusting back onto Ian’s finger. 

“More, Ian, more, please.” He knows his voice is wrecked, knows he sounds fucking pitiful, but he can’t stop himself and then Ian presses another finger inside him and starts scissoring, crooking the fingers and hitting Mickey’s prostate and it’s so fucking worth it, Mickey’s seeing stars. 

Before long, Ian’s pressing himself into Mickey, and “Holy fucking shit, Mick, you’re so tight, so fucking hot, oh my god.” 

“Fuck me, fucking faster, Ian, I’m not some fucking porcelain doll, jesus fucking christ Gallagher  _ move. _ ” 

Mickey starts pressing kisses down the long column of Ian’s neck and that seems to spur the redhead on and suddenly he’s thrusting into Mickey with a fucking vengeance, hard and fast and bruising and Mickey throws his head back on the pillow and groans. He’s bracketed by Ian’s arms on either side of his head, so he grabs one of them and throws his other arm over his mouth. Ian’s free hand grabs that hand, lacing their fingers and pressing Mickey’s hand over his head into the bed. 

“Wanna fuckin’ hear you, Mick. God, you sound so fucking good. No one else is home, you can be loud.” And he rotates his hips as he’s thrusting and Mickey’s pretty sure he’s screaming. 

Mickey can feel his entire body heat up and then numb as the heat in the base of his stomach coils and burns and he takes the hand not laced into Ian’s and wraps it around his leaking cock and pumps, keeping time with Ian’s punishing thrusts. There’s a moment of fumbling and then Ian is pouring lube onto Mickey’s hand and wrapping it back around his cock and Mickey thinks that this may very well be the hottest thing that’s ever happened to him and then Ian opens his mouth. 

“You look so fucking good, Mickey. So fucking good for me, feel so good, look so good.” His thrusting is getting erratic, Mickey’s body can’t decide if he should push up into his own hand or onto Ian’s cock and his hips are moving without his permission and he’s groaning out. “God, wanna cum so badly, Mick. Want you to cum first, come on, baby, cum for me.” 

Mickey moans, low and loud, and then Ian’s biting at the crux of his neck and his shoulder and he’s orgasming, jizz spilling out over his hand, his stomach, Ian’s stomach where it’s pressed into his, and then Ian is coming inside of him with a shout and shaking legs. 

 

***

 

Ian’s pretty sure he’s seeing stars when he comes down. Gingerly, he rolls off of Mickey, wincing slightly as he pulls out, kind of awed at the way his spunk spills out over Mickey and the sheets below him and Mickey’s soft and smiling a little. He slaps at the table next to the bed until his hand lands on the pack of cigarettes, slipping one out of the pack and into his mouth. His other hand still hasn’t let go of Ian’s, and his eyes are closed, relaxed and easy. He finally manages to light the cigarette. With a grin, Ian detaches their hands, leans up, snatches it from his mouth, presses a kiss, hard and forceful, onto Mickey’s surprised mouth. Then he puts the cigarette back in place and makes his way, on wobbling legs, to the bathroom. He cleans himself up, and goes back to the bedroom. Mickey’s got one hand under his head, a goofy grin on his face, breathing out smoke. He starts a little when Ian tosses the damp cloth on his belly, and then rolls his eyes. He starts to clean himself one handed, but Ian just grabs the cloth from him and ignores his protests, cleaning the drying jizz from his stomach and legs. He stretches, long and languid, like a cat, and Ian feels his heart beat double time. 

“Skip class with me.” He hears himself whispering to Mickey. 

Mickey just looks up with a smirk. “Tryna corrupt me, Gallagher?” Then he looks at his phone. “Fuck it, I was gonna be late anyway.” 

Ian smiles, and Mickey’s eyes are laughing, so he goes to get the plate of now-cold pancakes and heats it and a mug of coffee up in the microwave and puts an obscene amount of sugar in the coffee and hooks the syrup jar with his finger and balances forks on top of the pancakes and they eat breakfast in bed because “We need to wash the sheets now, anyway, Mick, come on, just this once.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this annoying yet? It feels annoying. You're all delightfully wonderful. 
> 
> tumblr: thececimonster
> 
> Kudos and comments are so so appreciated. xoxo


	5. Something Like Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one. Their happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cries* Thank you for sticking around!

On the evening of his first art show, Mickey Milkovich wore brand new boots, a button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a ridiculous smile. He held his head high, 23-year-old pride sharp and cutting in his bright blue eyes, and gripped his boyfriend’s hand tight as they walked in the door of the studio. 

 

***

 

Ian Gallagher walks around the brick-walled studio with brand new jeans and a dark green button-down, and a whole lot of pride. He’s 21 years old, still the quintessential middle child, still skinny, still redheaded, still a Gallagher through and through. He promised to send Fiona and Deb and Liam as many pictures as he could, endured Lip’s endless ribbing, and ignored Carl’s questions about how gay sex worked. 

He runs his fingers through his boyfriend’s soft hair and stares at a wall of Mickey’s drawings of him and smiles. 

 

***

 

Mickey’s portion of the installment is titled “Tough Guy,” and the drawing professor - “Just call me Jeff” with his skateboarding shoes and his hipster beard - who had gotten him the studio space along with two other students, had loved the name, loved the irony. 

The first drawing, it’s titled “Gallagher,” and it’s Ian in his uniform, hunched over the kitchen table with half a peanut butter jelly sandwich in his hand and a text book open in front of him. His brow is furrowed and he looks tired. 

The second drawing, it’s titled “Mumbles,” and it’s Ian, tank top and gym shorts, sneakers still on his feet, face down on the sofa, head pressed into the pillows, one hand flopping off the sofa. You can kinda see the tattoo Mickey gave him from underneath the tank top, the wing of the eagle taking flight.

The third drawing, it’s probably Mickey’s favorite, because it makes Ian blush and he refuses to send a picture of it to his siblings, which is probably good, because Liam and Carl and Debs are still underage and. It’s titled “Firecrotch,” and it’s Ian, one arm draped over his eyes, sun in a bright line across his bare chest, sheet loosely draped around his hips, a fucked-out grin plastered on his face and a row of hickies blooming up his neck. 

The fourth, it made Mandy laugh for too long, it’s titled “Carrot Top,” and it’s Ian, head bent down, sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, as Iggy’s girlfriend gives him a pretty-decent haircut. He had been complaining for weeks about the curls flopping onto his forehead until Jade came into the apartment with a set of clippers and tells him to sit down and shut the fuck up. You can’t really see her in the picture, just her hands, but it’s Ian’s relaxed face, loose limbs splayed on the fake hardwood floor that makes Mickey smile behind his hand. 

The last one, it’s the one from when they started this, this...this forever. It’s titled “Ian,” and it’s the drawing of Ian, back to Mickey, sweatpants loose over his hips, listening to music. It’s still Mickey’s favorite Ian, the just-woke-up, good-morning-Mick, I-made-pancakes-Mick, smiling and swaying to the music. 

The Ian next to Mickey presses into his side, smiles proudly, blushing a little when people realize “Oh, that’s him! You’re the guy from the pictures!” Mickey wants to cry out, of course it’s him, of course he’s the guy in the pictures. He never wants to stop drawing Ian, never wants to stop showing Ian off like this, showing off how lucky he is to love a guy like this, how lucky he is that this man with his hard lines and sharp words is soft and warm for him with smiles like fucking sunshine, how fucking lucky he is that the living embodiment of everything good about this world loves a fucked up Southside thug with a bad attitude and a tattoo gun, lets him be soft and pliant and good and beautiful. He’s a long way from the kid who got his head bashed in for drawing pictures of this curly-haired redhead with too many freckles, and he wants to scream to the rooftops that this Ian is his, all his, he’s mine and I’m his and that’s that.

This Ian stands with Mandy and Jade in cocktail dresses and Iggy, who looks uncomfortable as hell in a button down and slacks, and he's drinking a ginger ale, while people are asking Mickey about his art, about his tattoos, about his work. He’s smiling fire-bright, a beacon in the room, Mickey is the moth and Ian is a light that never stops burning, and Mickey can’t stay away. 

 

***

 

Mickey looks  _ good,  _ standing there next to his professor (yeah, the guy’s a fuckin’ hipster with his weirdly patterned socks and his hipster fuckin’ beard), and Ian’s heart might explode, he’s filled with pride and love and something he can’t label that feels like it might be forever. People keep coming up to him where he’s standing with Iggy and Jade and Mandy, until she leaves to go hit on some guy who’s been looking at her from across the room the whole night. They’re asking him if he’s the guy in the pictures, and yeah, he is, that’s him, that’s Mickey loving him in massive, bright-lit color, every stroke of ink a whispered  _ I love you, you’re beautiful, let me give you the world _ . A couple people ask about his tattoo, and he tells them, oh, the artist did it, here’s the name of his shop. 

He keeps catching Mickey’s eye across the studio, those bright blue eyes like a goddamn fog light across a sea of people. He can feel his phone buzzing in his pocket, it’s texts from Fi and Debs and Liam and probably Kev and Vee and Lip and even Carl, congratulating him or teasing him or whatever else they’re doing, but he can feel Mickey’s eyes on him from where some guy in a suit is talking to the dark haired artist and he just smiles. 

Mickey finds his way back to Ian after a while, bright blue eyes like stars, and asks him if he wants to get the heck out of here and Ian just nods, grabbing Mickey’s hand and walking out of the room. 

 

***

 

It’s not perfect. Ian still has mood swings, still buzzes like a neon sign some days and struggles to get out bed the next. But Mickey’s there, with a cold shower and a distracting movie or ginger tea and soft hands until the buzzing stops or the fog lifts and takes him to the doctor when he needs it. Mickey’s still temperamental, twitchy and a little scared, but Ian knows when to push, when to give him space, when to press him against the wall, his back to Ian’s front, and bite into his neck until he relents, softens, becomes malleable putty in Ian’s arms. 

July still sucks, and sometimes Mandy still curls up crying and Mickey curls up around his little sister and rubs her back until she falls asleep. But the next morning, Ian’s there with pancakes and tea and a hug and a smile and they get through it. Some calls are still hard, and Ian cries for an entire day when a kid at the hospital where he’s doing clinicals dies, but Mickey’s there with strong hands and a warm embrace and Mandy brings home pizza and Ian’s favorite movie and they get through it. 

Iggy moves out to an apartment a few floors away with Jade, and Ian moves in. Fiona and Vee bring the kids to visit and they go to an amusement park and Carl pukes from eating too much cotton candy. Lip comes down at Christmas and he and Mandy look awful close on the sofa and Mickey rolls his eyes and Ian kind of smiles but it’s a little bit of a grimace but they seem happy. Mickey gets another new tattoo, “You make me free” in Ian’s scrawling handwriting across his chest. He tattoos Ian again, a simple MM on the freckled skin over the redhead’s heart. Iggy and Mickey and Mandy go back to Chicago for the first time right before Ian graduates, Jade is with them and Ian spends most of the flight asleep on Mickey’s shoulder, and going back doesn’t feel like coming home but Mickey doesn’t feel like vomiting much. Jamie meets them at the Alibi and there’s a kind of party going on and Mickey apologizes for stealing his oldest brother’s car all those years ago but Jamie just laughs and says he’s glad they did. 

The entire Gallagher clan, plus Vee and Kevin and their twins and Iggy and Jade (with a new engagement ring on her finger) descend on the apartment when Mandy and Ian graduate and Mickey can’t fucking stop smiling and he catches Ian’s bright green eyes over Fiona’s shoulder, and the future seems brighter than it possibly could. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all. This was my first ever completed multi-chap! I did the thing! Ugh, I'm such a sucker for pretty boys with trash mouths. It's a problem I have. I'm ignoring it. Anyway, thanks for sticking around for this long! Hope it didn't suck completely.
> 
> And Happy Christmas/Hanukkah to my dearest Jimmy! I luh u!
> 
> As per usual, comments/kudos/recommendations are my life blood. My tumblr is thececimonster, if you want to message me there. You're all so dear to me.

**Author's Note:**

> I relate a lot to Tinker Bell. If you don't give me attention, I will die, probably. Comments and kudos are my lifeblood. 
> 
> Any recommendations for other fics are welcome. My tumblr is thececimonster


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